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COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT 



THE COLPORTAGE LIBRARY. Vol.5. No. 76. Julv, 1899. 

Monthly. $1.20 per annum. Entered at Chicago Post-office as seconds i natter, 




The Bible Institute 

Colportage Association, 

Chicago. 



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The Bible Institute Colportage Association 

(D. L. Moody, President,) 
Was founded for the purpose of issuing good sound Christian 
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Moody's Stories 



Being a Second Volume of Anecdotes, 
Incidents and Illustrations 



/ 

By D. L. Moody 






Authorized Collection 



CHICAGO 

The Bible Institute Colportage Association 

250 La Salle Avenue 



■OffT4r3ffl».J 



B'V.^V^' 

,KU7 



43168 

Copyrighted 1899, 

BY 

The Bible Institute Colportage Association, 
two copies received. 



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8EC0N0 OOPY, 









MOODY'S STORIES 



Lady Pendulum 

When Mr. Sankey and I were in London a lady who 
attended our meetings was brought into the house in 
her carriage, being unable to walk. At first she was 
very skeptical; but one day she said to her servant: 

44 Take me into the inquiry room. " 

After I had talked with her a good while about her 
soul she said : 

4 'But you will go back to America, and it will be all 
over. ,, 

4 '0h, no," said I, 4 'it is going to last forever." 

I couldn't make her believe it. I don't know how 
many times I talked with her. At last I used the fable 
of the pendulum in the clock. The pendulum figured 
up the thousands of times it would have to tick, and 
got discouraged, and was going to give up. Then it 
thought, 44 It is only a tick at a time," and went on. So 
it is in the Christian life — only one step at a time. That 
helped this lady very much. She began to see that if 
she could trust in God for a supply of grace for only one 
day, she could go right on in the same way from day to 
day. As soon as she saw this, she came out quite decided. 
But she never could get done talking about that pendu- 
lum. The servants called her Lady Pendulum. She had 

7 



8 MOODY'S STORIES 

a pendulum put up in her room to remind her of the 
illustration, and when I went away from London she 
gave me a clock — I've got it in my house still. 

The Greater Mystery 
Dr. Andrew Bonar once said that, although it was a 
mystery to him how sin should have come into the world, 
it was still a greater mystery how God should have come 
here to bear the penalty of it Himself. 

Never Runs Dry 

I remember being in a city where I noticed that 
the people resorted to a favorite well in one of the parks- 
I said to a man one day: 

"Does the well never run dry?" 

The man was drinking of the water out of the well; 
and as he stopped drinking, he smacked his lips, and 
said: 

"They have never been able to pump it dry yet. 
They tried it a few years ago. They put the fire-engines 
to work, and tried all they could to pump the well dry; 
but they found there was a river flowing right under the 
city." 

Thank God, the well of salvation can never run dry 

either! 

He Trusted his Father 

A party of gentlemen in Scotland wanted to get 
some eggs from a nest on the side of a precipice, and 
they tried to persuade a poor boy that lived near to go 
over and get them, saying they would hold him by a 
rope. They offered him a good deal of money; but they 
were strangers to him, and he would not go. They 
told him they would see that no accident happened to 
him; they would hold the rope, 



MOODY'S STORIES 



At last he said: tl I will go if my father will hold 
the rope." 

He trusted his father. . 

A man will not trust strangers. I want to get 
acquainted with a man before I put my confidence in 
him. I have known God for forty years, and I have 
more confidence in Him now than I ever had before; it 
increases every yean 

Peace Declared 

When France and England were at war once a French 
vessel had gone off on a long whaling voyage. When 
they came back, the crew were short of water, and being 
near an English port, they wanted to get water; but they 
were afraid that they would be taken prisoners if they 
went into that port. Some people in the port saw their 
signal of distress, and sent word that they need not be 
afraid, that the war was over, and peace had been 
declared. But they couldn't make those sailors believe 
it, and they didn't dare to go into port, although they 
were out of water. At last they made up their minds 
that they had better go in and surrender their cargo 
and their lives to their enemies rather than perish at sea 
without water; and when they got in, they found out 
that what had been told them was true, that peace had 
been declared. 

There are a great many people who don't believe the 
glad tidings that peace has been made by Jesus Christ 
between God and man, but it is true. 

Sawdust or Bread 

If you go out to your garden and throw down some 
sawdust, the birds will not take any notice; but if you 



lo MOODY'S STORIES 

throw down some crumbs, you will find they will soon 
sweep down and pick them up. 

The true child of God can tell the difference (so to 
speak) between sawdust and bread. Many so-called 
Christians are living on the world's sawdust, instead of 
being nourished by the Bread that cometh down from 
heaven. Nothing can satisfy the longings of the soul 
but the Word of the living God. 

11 Baby's Feeding Himself!" 

You know it is always regarded a great event in the 
family when a child can feed itself. It is propped up at 
table, and at first perhaps it uses the spoon upside down, 
but by and by it uses it all right, and mother, or per- 
haps sister, claps her hands and says: 

"Just see, baby's feeding himself!" 

Well, what we need as Christians is to be able to feed 
ourselves. How many there are who sit helpless and 
listless, with open mouths, hungry for spiritual, things, 
and the minister has to try to feed them, while the Bible 
is a feast prepared, into which they never venture. 

Should Not Be Postponed 
In 187 1 I preached a series of sermons on the life of 
Christ in old Farwell hall, Chicago, for five nights. I 
took Him from the cradle and followed Him up to the 
judgment hall, and on that occasion I consider I made 
as great a blunder as ever I made in my life. It was upon 
that memorable night in October, and the court-house 
bell was sounding an alarm of fire, but I paid no atten- 
tion to it. You know we were accustomed to hear the 
fire-bell often, and it didn't disturb us much when it 
sounded. I finished the sermon upon "What Shall I Do 
with Jesus?" and said to the audience; 



MOODY'S STORIES 1 1 

"Now^ I want you to take the question with you and 
think it over, and next Sunday I want you to come back 
and tell me what you are going to do with Him. " 

What a mistake ! It seems now as if Satan was in my 
mind when I said this. Since then I never have dared 
give an audience a week to think of their salvation. If 
they were lost, they might rise up in judgment against 
me. "Now is the accepted time." 

I remember Mr. Sankey singing, and how his voice 
rang when he came to that pleading verse: 

"To-day the Savior calls, 
For refuge fly! 
The storm of Justice falls, 
And death is nigh!" 

After the meeting we went home. I remember going 
down La Salle street with a young man, and saw the 
glare of flames. I said to the young man: 

"This means ruin to Chicago." -*9N 

About one o'clock Farwell hall was burned; soon the 
church in which I had preached went down, and every- 
thing was scattered. I never saw that audience again. 

My friends, we don't know what may happen to-mor- 
row, but there is one thing I do know, and that is, if you 
take the gift of God you are saved. If you have eternal 
life you need not fear fire, death, or sickness. Let dis- 
ease or death come, you can shout triumphantly over 
the grave if you have Christ. My friends, what are you 
going to do with Him? Will you not decide now? 

Teaching Willie Faith 

Some years ago I wanted to teach my boy what faith 
was, and so I put him on a table. He was a little fellow 



12 MOODY'S STORIES 

about two years old. I stood back three or four feet, 
and said. 

44 Willie, jump/' 

The little fellow said, "Papa, I'se afraid. " 

I said: i 'Willie, I will catch you. Just look right at 
me, and jump." 

The little fellow got all ready to jump, and then 
looked down again, and said, "I'se afraid." 

"Willie, didn't I tell you I would catch you? Will 
papa deceive you? Now, Willie, look me right in the 
eye, and jump, and I will catch you." 

The little fellow got all ready the third tim-e to jump, 
but he looked on the floor, and said: 

"I'se afraid." 

"Didn't I tell you I would catch you?" 

"Yes." 

At last I said: "Willie, don't take your eyes off me"; 
and I held the little fellow's eyes, and said, "Now, 
jump; don't look at the floor;" and he leaped into my 
arms. 

Then he said to me, "Let me jump again." 

I put him back, and the moment he got on the table 
he jumped, and after that, when he was on the table 
and I was standing five or six feet away I heard him cry, 
"Papa, I'se coming," and had just time to rush and 
catch him. He seemed to put too much confidence in 
me. But you cannot put too much confidence in God. 

Act on Your Belief 

When President Lincoln signed the proclamation of 
emancipation, copies of it were sent to all points along 
the Northern line, where they were posted. Now, sup- 
posing a slave should have seen a copy of that proclama- 



MOODY r S STORIES 13 

tion and should have learned its contents. He might 
have known the fact, he might have assented to its jus- 
tice, but if he had still continued to serve his old master 
as a slave his faith in the document would not have 
amounted to anything. 

And so it is with us. A mere knowledge of the his- 
torical events of Christ's life, or a simple intellectual 
assent to His teachings and His mission, will be of no 
help in a man's life unless he adds to them a trustful 
surrender to the Lord's loving kindness. 

" Forty Miles to Liberty" 

A friend of mine went to teach in Natchez before the 
war. He and a friend of his went out riding one Satur- 
day in the country. They saw an old slave coming, and 
they thought they would have a little fun. They had 
just come to a place where there was a fork in the road, 
and there was a sign-post which read, "Forty miles to 
Liberty." 

"Sambo, how old are you?" 

"I don't know, massa. I guess I'se about eighty." 

"Can you read?" 

"No, sah; we don't read in dis country. It's agin 
the law." 

"Can you tell what is on that sign-post?" 

"Yes, sah; it says forty miles to Liberty." 

"Well, now," said my friend, "why don't you follow 
that road and get your liberty? It says there, only 
'forty miles to Liberty.' Now, why don't you take that 
road and go there?" 

The old man's countenance changed, and he said: 
"That ar's a sham, young massa, but if it pointed up 
thar, " and he raised his trembling hand toward heaven, 



14 MOODY'S STORIES 

44 to the liberty wherewith Christ makes us free, that ar 
wouldn't be no sham." 

The old slave, with all his ignorance, had even then 
experienced a liberty in his own soul that these young 
men, with all their boasted education, at that time knew 
nothing of. 

The Most Important Thing 

A certain John Bacon, once a famous sculptor, left 
an inscription to be placed on his tomb in Westminster 
Abbey : 

4 'What I was as an artist seemed of some importance 
to me while I lived; but what I was as a believer in 
Jesus Christ is the only thing of importance to me now." 

Taking the Wrong Boat 

A Methodist minister, on his way to a camp-meeting, 
through some mistake took passage on the wrong boat. 
He found that instead of being bound for a religious 
gathering, he was on his way to a horse-race. His fel- 
low-passengers were betting and discussing the events, 
and the whole atmosphere was foreign to his nature. He 
besought the captain that he would stop his boat and let 
him off at the first landing, as the surroundings were so 
distasteful to him. 

The story also goes on to relate how, on the same 
occasion a sporting man, intending to go to the races, 
by some mistake found himself on the wrong boat, bound 
for the camp-meeting. The conversation about him was 
no more intelligible to him than to the man in the first 
instance, and he, too, besought the captain to stop and 
let him off the boat. 

Now what was true in these two cases is practically 



MOODY'S STORIES 15 

true with every one. A true Christian is wretched where 
there is no fellowship, and an unregenerate man is not 
at ease where there are only Christians. A man's future 
will be according to what he is here prepared for. If he 
is not regenerate, heaven will have no attractions for 
him. Heaven is a prepared place for a prepared people. 

The Best Proof 

"The highest proof of the infallibility of Scripture, " 
said the late A. J. Gordon, "is the practical one that 
we have proved it so. As the coin of the realm has 
always been found to buy the amount of its face-value, 
so the prophecies and promises of Scripture have yielded 
their face value to those who have taken the pains to 
prove them. If they have not always done so, it is 
probable that they have not yet matured. There are 
multitudes of Christians who have so far proved the 
veracity of the Bible that they are ready to trust it with- 
out reserve in all that it pledges for the world yet unseen 
and the life yet unrealized." 

Have Faith. 

I remember a man telling me he preached for a num- 
ber of years without any result. He used to say to his 
wife as they went to church that he knew the people 
would not believe anything he said; and there was no 
blessing. At last he saw his error; he asked God to 
help him, and^took courage, and then the blessing came. 

"According to your faith it shall be unto you." This 
man had expected nothing and he got just what he 
expected. Dear friends, let us expect that God is going 
to use us. Let us have courage and go forward, looking 
to God to do great things. 



16 MOODY'S STORIES 

Chasing His Shadow 

When I was a little boy I tried to catch my shadow. 
I don't know if you were ever so foolish; but I remem- 
ber running after it, and trying to get ahead of it. I 
could not see why the shadow always kept ahead of me. 
Once I happened to be racing with my face to the sun, 
and I looked over my head and saw my shadow behind 
me, and it kept behind me all the way. 

It is the same with the Sun of Righteousness. Peace 
and joy will go with you while you go with your face 
toward Him, but those who turn their backs on the Sun 
are in darkness all the time. Turn to the light of God, 
and the reflection will flash in your heart. 

His Minister's Bible 

If I have a right to cut out a certain portion of the 
Bible, I don't know why one of my friends has not a 
right to cut out another, and another friend to cut out 
another part, and so on. You would have a queer kind 
of Bible if everybody cut out what he wanted to! Every 
adulterer would cut out everything about adultery; every 
liar would cut out everything about lying; every drunk- 
ard would be cutting out what he didn't like. 

Once a gentleman took his Bible around to his min- 
ister, and said, "That is your Bible. " 

"Why do you call it my Bible?" said the minister.' 

"Well," replied the gentleman, "I have been sitting 
under your preaching for five years, and when you said 
that a thing in the Bible was not authentic, I cut it out." 

He had about a third of the Bible cut out; all of Job, 
all of Ecclesiastes and Revelation, and a good deal 
besides. The minister wanted him to leave the Bible 



MOODY'S STORIES 17 

with him; he didn't want the rest of his congregation to 
see it. But the man said: 

"Oh, no! I have the covers left, and I will hold on 
to them." 

And off he went holding on to the covers. 

Mocked by his Children 

When I was in St. Louis some years ago, there was 
an old man who had been away off on the mountains of 
an ungodly life, but in his early manhood he had known 
Christ. He came into the inquiry-room, literally broken 
down. About midnight that old man came trembling 
before God and was saved. He wiped away his tears, 
and started home. 

Next night I saw him in the audience with a terrible 
look in his face. As soon as I finished preaching, I went 
to him and said: 

44 My good friend, you haven't gone back into dark- 
ness again?" 

Said he: "Oh, Mr. Moody, it has been the most 
wretched day in my life." 

"Why so?" 

"Well, this morning as soon as I got my breakfast, I 
started out. I have a number of children, married, and 
in this city, and they have families; and I have spent 
the day going around and telling them what God has 
done for me. I told them how I had tasted salvation, 
with the tears trickling down my face ; and, Mr. Moody, 
I hadn't a child that didn't mock me!" 

That made me think of Lot down in Sodom. It is an 
awful thing for a man who has been a backslider to have 
his children mock him. But it is written: "Thy back- 
slidings shall reprove thee; know, therefore, and see 



i8 MOODY'S STORIES 

that it is an evil thing and bitter that thou hast forsaken 
the Lord thy God." 

No Need to Read Them 

A great many people say, you must hear both sides; 
but if a man should write me a most slanderous letter 
about my wife, I don't think I would have to read it; I 
should tear it up and throw it to-the winds. Have I to 
read all the infidel books that are written, to hear both 
sides? Have I to take up a book that is a slander on my 
Lord and Master, who has redeemed me with His blood? 
Ten thousand times no! I will not touch it. 

Tolling the Bell 

I well remember how in my native village in New 
England it used to be customary, as a funeral procession 
left the church, for the bell to toll as many times as the 
deceased was years old. How anxiously I would count 
those strokes of the bell to see how long I might reckon 
on living! Sometimes there would be seventy or eighty 
tolls, and I would give a sigh of relief to think I had so 
many years to live. But at other times there would be 
only a few years tolled, and then a horror would seize 
me as I thought that I, too, might soon be claimed as a 
victim by that dread monster, Death. Death and judg- 
ment were a constant source of fear to me till I real- 
ized the fact that neither shall ever have any hold on a 
child of God. In his letter to the Romans the apostle 
Paul has showed,, in most direct language, that there is 
no condemnation for a child of God, but that he is 
passed from under the power of law, and in the Epistle 
to the Corinthians he tells us that "there is a natural 
body, and there is a spiritual body," "and as we have 



MOODY'S STORIES 



borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the 
image of the heavenly." 

A Father's Neglect 

A story has gone the round of the American press 
that made a great impression upon me as a father. A 
father took his little child out into the field one Sabbath, 
and, it being a hot day, he lay down under a beautiful 
shady tree. The little child ran about gathering wild 
flowers and little blades of grass, and coming to its 
father and saying: 

4 'Pretty! pretty!" 

At last the father fell asleep, and while he was sleep- 
ing the little child wandered away. When he awoke, 
his first thought was: 

"Where is my child?" 

He looked all around, but he could not see him. He 
shouted at the top of his voice, but all he heard was the 
echo. Running to a little hill, he looked around and 
shouted again. No response! Then going to a preci- 
pice at some distance, he looked down, and there, upon 
the rocks and briars, he saw the mangled form of his 
loved child. He rushed to the spot, took up the lifeless 
corpse, and hugged it to his bosom, and accused him- 
self of being the murderer of his child. While he was 
sleeping his child had wandered over the precipice. 

I thought as I read that, what a picture of the church 
of God! How many fathers and mothers, how many 
Christian men and women, are sleeping now while their 
children wander over the terrible precipice right into the 
bottomless pit! Father, mother, where is your boy to- 
night? 



20 MOODY'S STORIES 

Worth Ten Thousand Men 
Let us not give heed to gloomy and discouraging 
remarks. In the name of our great Commander let us 
march on to battle and to victory. There are some gen- 
erals whose name alone is worth more than a whole army 
of ten thousand men. In our army in the Civil War 
there were some whose presence sent a cheer all along 
the line. As they passed on, cheer upon cheer went up. 
The men knew who was going to lead them, and they 
were sure of having success. "The boys" liked to fight 
under such generals as that. Let us encourage our- 
selves in the Lord, and encourage each other; then we 
shall have good success. 

"With or Without Power" 
Doctor Gordon of Boston used to say that as you 
passed along Washington street of that city, or Broad- 
way, New York, you might see stores with the card in 
the window, "To rent, with or without power," and any 
one could rent the store, and by paying something extra 
could have power furnished from the engine in the rear. 
Doctor Gordon thought it would be a good thing to ask 
men and women when they joined the church if they 
wanted to be a member on the "with power" or the 
"without power" basis, and if the latter, to tell them 
there were no vacancies for that kind in the church, it 
already had too many members without power. 

Turning on the Tap 

A man who lived on the bank of Lake Erie had water 

pipes laid to his house from the lake; and when he 

wanted water all he had to do was to turn the tap and 

the water flowed in. If the government had presented 



MOODY'S STORIES 21 

him with the lake he would not have known what to do 
with it. So we may say that if God were to give us 
grace enough for a lifetime, we should not know how to 
use it. He has given us the privilege of drawing on Him 
day by day — not "forty days after sight." There is 
plenty of grace in the bank of heaven; we need not be 
afraid of its becoming exhausted. 

Keep Close ! 

The late Dr. Andrew Bonar once remarked in his 
own quaint fashion that it was always easy to trace the 
footprints of a person if we walked close behind him, but 
if we were some distance back we might fail to find 
them; and accordingly, if we followed close after the 
Master we would easily see the way, but if we tried to 
follow afar off we would find it difficult to know the path 
of His will. 

On Both Knees 

William Dawson once told this story to illustrate how 
humble the soul must be before it can find peace. 

He said that at a revival meeting a little lad who was 
used to Methodist ways, went home to his mother and 
said : 

"Mother, John So-and-so is under conviction and 
seeking for peace, but he will not find it to-night, 
mother. " 

"Why, William?" said she. 

"Because he is only down on one knee, mother, and 
he will never get peace until he is down on both knees." 

Until conviction of sin brings us down on both knees, 
until we are completely humbled, until we have no hope 
in ourselves left, we cannot find the Savior. 



22 MOODY'S STORIES 

Something New 

A great many people seem to think that the Bible is 
out of date, that it is an old book, that it has passed its 
day. They say it was very good for the dark ages, and 
that there is some very good history in it, but it was not 
intended for the present time; we are living in a very 
enlightened age and men can get on very well without 
it; we have outgrown it. 

Now, you might just as well say that the sun, which 
has shone so long, is now so old that it is out of date, 
and that whenever a man builds a house he need not put 
any windows in it, because we have a newer light and a 
better light; we have gaslight and electric light. These 
are something new; and I would advise people, if they 
think the Bible is too old and worn out, when they build 
houses, not to put windows in them, but just to light 
them with electric light; that is something new and that 
is what they are anxious for. 

Bidding Christ Farewell 

A rule I have had for years is to treat the Lord Jesus 
Christ as a personal friend. It is not a creed, a mere 
empty doctrine, but it is Christ Himself we have. The 
moment we receive Christ we should receive Him as a 
friend. When I go away from home I bid my wife and 
children good-bye; I bid my friends and acquaintances 
good-bye ; but I never heard of a poor backslider going 
down on his knees and saying: 

"I have been near You for ten years. Your service 
has become tedious and monotonous. I have come to 
bid You farewell. Good-bye, Lord Jesus Christ V 9 

I never heard of one doing this. I will tell you how 
they go away; they just run away. 



MOODY'S STORIES 23 

Any One Can Believe 

God has put the offer of salvation in such a way that 
the whole world can lay hold of it. All men can believe. 
A lame man might not perhaps be able to visit the sick; 
but he can believe. A blind man, by reason of his infirm- 
ity, cannot do many things; but he can believe. A deaf 
man can believe. A dying man can believe. God has put 
salvation so simply that young and old, wise and foolish, 
rich and poor, can all believe if they will. 

The Wrath of God Was on Him 

I heard of a rich man who was asked to make a con- 
tribution on behalf of some charitable object. The text 
was quoted to him — u He that hath pity upon the poor 
lendeth unto the Lord; and that which he hath given 
will He pay him again." He said that the security 
might be good enough, but the credit was too long. He 
was dead within two weeks. 

The War was Ended 

During the last days of the Civil War, when many 
men were deserting the Southern flag, Secretary Stanton 
sent out a notice from the war department that no more 
refugees should be taken into the Union army. 

A Southern soldier who had not seen that order came 
into the Union lines, and they read it to him. He didn't 
know what to do. If he went back into the Southern 
army he would be shot as a deserter, and the Northern 
army wouldn't have him. So he went into the woods, 
and stayed there, living on roots and whatever else he 
could get, until finally he was starving. 

One day he saw an officer riding by. He rushed out 
of the woods, caught the horse's bridle, and said he 



24 MOODY'S STORIES 

would kill the officer if he didn't help him. The officer 
asked what was the trouble, and he told him. 

"But haven't you heard the news?" said the officer. 

"No; what news?" 

"Why, the war is over! Lee has surrendered, and 
peace has been declared. Go to the nearest town and get 
all the food you want." 

The man waved his hat, and went off as fast as he 
could. 

I want to say that peace has been declared between 
God and man. Be reconciled to God. The blood is on 
the mercy-seat, and the vilest sinner can be saved for 
time and eternity. 

Nearer than he Thought 

I was reading, some time ago, of a young man who 
had just come out of a saloon, and had mounted his 
horse. As a certain deacon passed on his way to church, 
he followed and said: 

"Deacon, can you tell me how far it is to hell?" 
The deacon's heart was pained to think that a young 
man like that should talk so lightly; but he passed on 
and said nothing. When he came round the corner to 
the church, he found that the horse had thrown that 
young man, and he was dead. You, too, may be nearer 
the judgment than you think. 

Its Strength was Underestimated 

Some of the older people can remember when our 
Civil War broke out. Secretary Seward, who was Lin- 
coln's Secretary of State — a long-headed and shrewd 
politician — prophesied that the war would be over in 
ninety days; and young men in thousands and hundreds 



MOODY'S STORIES 25 

of thousands came forward and volunteered to go down 
to Dixie and whip the South. They thought they would 
be back in ninety days; but the war lasted four years, 
and cost about half a million of lives. What was the 
matter? Why, the South was a good deal stronger than 
the North supposed. Its strength was underestimated. 
Jesus Christ makes no mistake of that kind. When 
He enlists a man in His service, He shows him the 
dark side ; He lets him know that he must live a life of 
self-denial. If a man is not willing to go to heaven by 
the way of Calvary, he cannot go at all. Many men want 
a religion in which there is no cross, but they cannot 
enter heaven that way. If we are to be disciples of 
Jesus Christ, we must deny ourselves and take up our 
cross and follow Him. So let us sit down and count the 
cost. Do not think that you will have no battles if you 
follow the Nazarene, because many battles are before 
you. Yet if I had ten thousand lives, Jesus Christ 
should have every one of them. Men do not object to 
a battle if they are confident that they will have victory, 
and, thank God, every one of us may have the victory 
if we will. 

Seeing the Gospel 

"Have you ever heard the Gospel?" asked a mission- 
ary of a Chinaman, whom he had not seen in his mission 
before., 

"No," he replied, "but I have seen it. I know a 
man who used to be the terror of his neighborhood. He 
was a bad opium smoker and dangerous as a wild beast; 
but he became wholly changed. He is now gentle and 
good and has left off opium. " 



26 MOODY'S STORIES 

Illuminated Christians 

We see very few illuminated Christians now. If 
every one of us was illuminated by the Spirit of God, 
how we could light up the churches! But to have a lan- 
tern without any light, that would be a nuisance. Many 
Christians carry along lanterns and say, "I wouldn't 
give up my religion for yours. " They talk about reli- 
gion. The religion that has no fire is like painted fire. 
They are artificial Christians. Do you belong to that 
class? You can tell. If you can't, your friends can. 

There is a fable of an old lantern in a shed, which 
began to boast because it had heard its master say he 
didn't know what he would ever do without it. But the 
little candle within spoke up and said: l 'Yes, you'd be 
a great comfort if it wasn't for me! You are nothing; 
I'm the one that gives the light." We are nothing, but 
Christ is everything, and what we want is to keep in 
communion with Him and let Christ dwell in us richly 
and shine forth through us. 

I have a match box with a phosphorescent front. It 
draws in the rays of the sun during the day and then 
throws them out in the dead hours of the night, so that I 
can always see it in the dark. Now, that is what we 
ought to be, constantly drawing in the rays of the Sun of 
Righteousness and then giving them out. Some one said 
to some young converts, "It is all moonshine being con- 
verted." They replied, "Thank you for the compli- 
ment. The moon borrows light from the sun, and so we 
borrow ours from the Sun of Righteousness." That is 
what takes place when we have this illumination. 



MOODY'S STORIES 27 

Not Ashamed of his Lord 

A young convert tried to preach in the open air; he 
could not preach very well either, but he did the best he 
could. Some one interrupted him and said: 

" Young man, you cannot preach; you ought to be 
ashamed of yourself." 

Said the young man, "So I am, but I am not ashamed 
of my Lord." 

That is right. Do not be ashamed of Christ — of the 
Man that bought us with His own blood. 

He Silenced the Devil 

If you find yourself getting very miserly, begin to 
scatter, like a wealthy farmer in New York state I heard 
of. He was a noted miser, but he was converted. Soon 
after, a poor man who had been burned out and had no 
provisions came to him for help. The farmer thought 
he would be liberal and give the man a ham from his 
smoke-house. On his way to get it, the tempter whis- 
pered to him: 

"Give him the smallest one you have." 

He had a struggle whether he would give a large or a 
small ham, but finally he took down the largest he could 
find. 

"You are a fool," the devil said. 

"If you don't keep still," the farmer replied, "I will 
give him every ham I have in the smoke-house." 

Warm the Wax ! 

A gentleman in Ireland had a seal made for me. 

"D.L.M." is on one side, and on the other, "God is love." 

If I want to stamp "God is love" I would not make 

much headway if the wax was hard and cold. Many 



28 MOODY'S STORIES 

people go to meetings, and it is as hard to make an 
impression on them as in pressing a seal on hard wax. 
But let the wax be warmed up and an impression is made. 
If we are willing, every one of us may be sealed for the 
day of redemption. "In whom ye also trusted after 
that ye heard the Word of Truth, the Gospel of your sal- 
vation; in whom also after that ye believed, ye were 
sealed with that Holy Spirit of promise." 

Draw Nearer 

When I was a boy my mother used to send me out 
doors to get a birch stick to whip me with, when I had 
to be punished. At first I used to stand off from the 
rod as far as I could. But I soon found that the whip- 
ping hurt me more that way than any other; and so I 
went as near to my mother as I could, and found she 
could not strike me so hard. And so when God chastens 
us let us kiss the rod and draw as near to Him as we can. 

The Panorama Looks Brighter 

"When a panorama is to pass before an audience, the 
artist darkens the room in which they sit, so that the 
picture may be more fully seen. So God sometimes 
darkens our place on earth, puts out this light and that, 
and then before our souls He makes to pass the splen- 
dors and glories of the better land." 

All Things Work for Good 

There is one passage of Scripture which has always 
been a great comfort to me. In the eighth chapter of 
Romans Paul says: "All things work together for good 



MOODY'S STORIES 29 

to them that love God." Some years ago a child of 
mine had scarlet fever. I went to the druggist's to get 
the medicine which the doctor had ordered, and told 
him to be sure and be very careful in making up the 
prescription. The druggist took down one bottle after 
another, in any one of which there might be what would 
be rank poison for my child ; but he stirred them 
together and mixed them up, and made just the medicine 
which my child needed. And so God gives us a little 
adversity here, a little prosperity there, and all works 
for our good. 

It Takes Time 

Suppose I should send my little boy, five years old, 
to school to-morrow morning, and when he came home 
in the afternoon, say to him: 

"Willie, can you read? can you write? can you spell? 
Do you understand all about algebra, geometry, Hebrew, 
Latin and Greek?" 

"Why, papa," the little fellow would say, "how funny 
you talk. I have been all day trying to learn the 
A, B, C's!" 

Suppose I should reply: "If you have not finished 
your education, you need not go any more." What 
would you say? Why, you would say I had gone mad! 

There would be just as much reason in that as in the 
way that people talk about the Bible. The men who 
have studied the Bible for fifty years have never got 
down to the depths of it yet. There are truths there 
that the church of God has been searching out for 
the last nineteen hundred years, but no man has yet 
fathomed the depths of the ever-living stream, 



30 MOODY'S STORIES 

Something God Cannot Do 

In Ireland, some time ago, a teacher asked a little 
boy if there was anything that God could not do. The 
little fellow said: 

"Yes, He cannot see my sins through the blood of 
Christ." 

It Seemed Too Good to be True 

Some time ago I read in one of the daily papers a 
thing that pleased me very much. When the new ad- 
ministration of President McKinley went into office some 
clerks in one of the departments were promoted. One 
young lady was offered a promotion, but she went to see 
the secretary, General Butterworth, and said that there 
was a girl sitting next to her that had a family to sup- 
port. A brother who had been supporting the family had 
died, or sickened, and it had fallen upon her, and she 
asked the general to let her friend that sat next to her 
have the promotion in her place. 

The general said that he had, heard of such things in 
other generations, but he didn't know that it would ever 
happen in his generation. He was amazed to find a 
person on duty in Washington that was willing to give 
up her position and take a lower one, and let some one 
else have it that she might be able to help her family. 

In Colorado the superintendent of some works told me 
of a miner that was promoted, who came to the super- 
intendent, and said: 

"There is a man that has seven children, and I have 
only three, and he is having a hard struggle. Don't 
promote me, but promote him. " 

I know of nothing that speaks louder for Christ and 
Christianity than to see -a man or woman giving up what 



MOODY'S STORIES 31 

you call your rights for others, and "in honor preferring 
one another." 

The Scarlet Thread 
In the British Navy there is said to be a scarlet 
thread running through every line of cordage, and 
though a rope be cut into inch pieces it can be recog- 
nized as belonging to the government. So there is a 
scarlet thread running all through the Bible — the whole 
book points to Christ. 

The First " Don't Worry Club" 
Mrs. Sangster says that we hear a good deal in this 
age, as if it were a novelty, about the futility of being 
anxious, and people have established "Don't Worry 
Clubs." But the first "Don't Worry Club" was begun 
by our blessed Lord Himself when He said: "Take no 
thought for the morrow, for the morrow shall take 
thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day 
is the evil thereof." He bade us consider the lilies 
growing in their beauty and purity without a thought, 
and taught us the true way of living without care, with- 
out solicitude, bearing all burdens lightly, and having 
continual joy on our faces. Only those who have the 
indwelling Christ in their hearts can walk through this 
world with bright and glad looks, because they know 
that, let come what may, their Father is leading them 
safely, 

The Story Followed Him 

While I was at a convention in Illinois an old man 

past seventy years, got up, and said he remembered but 

one thing about his father, and that one thing followed 

him all through life. He could not remember his death, 



32 MOODY'S STORIES 

he had no recollection^of his funeral, but he recollected 
his father one winter night taking a little chip, and with 
his pocket-knife whittling out a little cross, and with the 
tears in his eyes he held up that cross, telling how God 
in His infinite love sent His Son down here to redeem 
us, and how He had died on the cross for us. The story 
of the cross followed him through life; and if we tell 
children these truths, they will never forget them. 

The Fatal Sleep 

Some time ago a vessel had been off on a whaling voy- 
age, and had been gone about three years. The father 
of one of the sailors had charge of the light-house, and 
he was expecting his boy to come home. It was time 
for the whaling-vessel to return. One night there came 
up a terrible gale. This father fell asleep, and while he 
slept his light went out. When he awoke he looked 
toward the shore and saw a vessel had been wrecked. 
He at once went to see if he could not yet save some one 
who might be still alive. The first body that came float- 
ing toward the shore was, to his great grief and surprise, 
the body of his own boy! He had been watching for 
that boy for many days. Now the boy had at last come 
in sight of home, and had perished because his father 
had let his light go out! 

I thought, what an illustration of fathers and mothers 
to-day that have let their lights go out! You are not 
training your children for God and eternity. You do not 
live as though there were anything beyond this life at 
all. You keep your affections set upon things on the 
earth instead of on things above, and the result is that 
the children do not believe there is anything in Chris- 
tianity. Perhaps the very next step they take may take 



MOODY'S STORIES 33 

them into eternity; the next day they may die without 
God and without hope. 

That Love is Spontaneous 

Some time ago, in an inquiry meeting, I said to a 
young miss who said that she could not love God, that 
it was very hard for her to love Him: 

"Is it hard for you to love your mother? Do you 
have to learn to love your mother?" 

She looked up through her tears, and said, "No; I 
can't help it; that is spontaneous. " 

"Well," I said, "when the Holy Spirit kindles love 
in your heart, you can not help loving God; it will be 
spontaneous." 

When the Spirit of God comes into your heart and 
mine, it will be easy to love and serve God. 

The Summing Up of His Life 

A man was taken into one of our insane asylums a 
few years ago from one of the Western cities. He had 
resolved to be rich. How he turned every stone to 
accumulate wealth ! All his energy and every faculty were 
pushed toward that one end. "Wealth, wealth, wealth! 
money, money, money!" was his cry. At last it drove 
him mad, and they took him to the mad-house, where he 
threw himself into a rocking-chair, and cried : 
"Millions of money, and in a mad-house!" 
That was all there was of his life. Pretty short, 
wasn't it? Sixty years gone, millions of money, and in 
a mad-house; and he died there. That was the sum- 
ming up of his life. 



34 MOODY'S STORIES 

Beautiful Motion but No Progress 

Many people are working and working, as Rowland 
Hill said, like children on a rocking-horse— it is a beau- 
tiful motion, but there is no progress. Those who are 
working for salvation are like men on a treadmill, going 
round and round and round; toiling and toiling and 
toiling; but nothing comes of it all. There is no prog- 
ress, and there cannot be until you have the motive 
power within, till the breath of life comes from God, 
which can alone give you power to work for others. 

Get It into Your Heart 
"Thy word have I hid in my heart that I might not 
sin against thee. " An old Scotchman says: "It is a 
good thing in a good place for a good purpose. " Many 
people have the Bible in their heads, or in their pockets; 
but we need to get it down into our hearts. 

How the Miners were Saved 

In the north of England they have been digging the 
coal for a century. They have gone miles and miles 
away from the shaft, under the sea, and there is danger 
of men getting lost. I heard of two old miners who lost 
their way. Their lights went out, and they were in dan- 
ger of losing their lives. After wandering around for a 
long time, they sat down, and one of them said: 

"Let us sit perfectly quiet, and see if we cannot feel 
which way the air is moving, because it always moves 
toward the shaft. ' ' 

There they sat for a long time, when all at once one 
of them felt a slight touch on his cheek, and he sprang 
to his feet and said: 

"I felt it." 



MOODY'S STORIES 35 



They went in the direction in which the air was mov- 
ing, and reached the shaft. 

Sometimes there comes a little breath from God that 
touches our souls. It may be so gentle and faint that 
you barely recognize it; but if you do, do not disregard 
it. Thank God that He has spoken to you, and praise 
Him for it, and whatever may come do not go in the 
opposite direction. Give yourself up to be led by it, and 
you will come out of darkness, out of bondage, out of 
sorrow, into perpetual light and joy. 

Receiving and Never Giving 
What makes the Dead Sea dead? Because it is all 
the time receiving, never giving out anything. Why is 
it that many Christians are cold? Because they are all 
the time receiving, never giving out anything. 

Dumb Christians 

It is a very sad thing that so many of God's children 
are dumb ; yet it is true. Parents would think it a great 
calamity to have their children born dumb ; they would 
mourn over it, and weep; and well they might; but did 
you ever think of the many dumb children God has? 
The churches are full of them; they never speak for 
Christ. They can talk about politics, art, and science; 
they can speak well enough and fast enough about the 
fashions of the day; but they have no voice for the Son 
of God. 

Like Siamese Twins 

Covetousness and stealing are almost like Siamese 
twins — they go together so often. In fact we might add 
lying, and make them triplets. "The covetous person 
is a thief in the shell. The thief is a covetous person 



36 MOODY'S STORIES 

out of the shell. Let a covetous person see something 
that he desires very much; let an opportunity of taking 
it be offered ; how very soon he will break through the 
shell and come out in his true character as a thief." 
The Greek word translated "covetousness" means — an 
inordinate desire of getting. When the Gauls tasted 
the sweet wines of Italy, they asked where they came 
from, and never rested until they had overrun Italy. 

Not Troubled with Doubts 

One of the happiest men I ever knew was a man in 
Dundee, Scotland, who had fallen and broken his back 
when he was a boy of fifteen. He had lain on his 
bed for about forty years, and could not be moved with- 
out a good deal of pain. Probably not a day had passed 
in all those years without acute suffering. But day after 
day the grace of God had been granted to him, and when 
I was in his chamber it seemed as if I was as near heaven 
as I could. get on earth. I can imagine that when the 
angels passed over Dundee, they had to stop there to 
get refreshed. 

When I saw him, I thought he must be beyond the 
reach of the tempter, and I asked him: "Doesn't Satan 
ever tempt you to doubt God, and to think that He is a 
hard Master?' ' 

"Oh, yes," he said, "he does try to tempt me. I lie 
here and see my old schoolmates driving along in their 
carriages, and Satan says: 'If God is so good, why 
does He keep you here all these years? You might have 
been a rich man, riding in your own carriage. ' Then I 
see a man who was young when I was walk by in perfect 
health, and Satan whispers: 'If God loved you, couldn't 
He have kept you from breaking your back?' " 



MOODY'S STORIES 37 

"What do you do when Satan tempts you?" 
"Ah, I just take him to Calvary, and I show him 
Christ, and I point out those wounds in His hands and 
feet and side, and say, 'Doesn't He love me?' and the 
fact is, he got such a scare there eighteen hundred years 
ago that he cannot stand it; he leaves me every time. " 
That bedridden saint had not much trouble with 
doubts; he was too full of the grace of God, 

Honey- Dew 

I have sometimes been- in a place where the very air 
seemed to be charged with the breath of God, like 
the moisture in the air. I remember one time as I went 
through the woods near Mount Hermon school I heard 
bees, and asked what it meant. 

"Oh," said one of the men, "they are after .the honey- 
dew. ' ' 

"What is that?" I asked. 

He took a chestnut leaf and told me to put my tongue 
to it. I did so, and the taste was sweet as honey. Upon 
inquiry I found that all up and down the Connecticut 
valley what they call "honey-dew" had fallen, so that 
there must have been altogether hundreds of tons of 
honey-dew in this region. Where it comes from I don't 
know. 

Do you suppose that this earth would be worth living 
on if it were not for the dew and the rain? So a church 
that hasn't any of the dew of heaven, any of the rain 
that comes down in showers, will be as barren as the 
earth would be without the dew and rain. 



3^ MOODY'S STORIES 

A Personal Matter 

"The life of Christianity," says Luther, "consists of 

personal pronouns. It is one thing to say, 'Christ is a 

Savior.' It is quite another to say, 4 He is my Savior.' 

The devil can say the first. Only the true Christian can 

say the second." 

They Knew It 

Let me tell you how I had my eyes opened about the 
theater question. I had an assistant superintendent of 
a Sabbath school, a very promising young man, who 
seemed to be very happy in the work. A star actor 
came to the city, and he went to see him. I knew noth- 
ing of it, but the next Sunday when he came into the 
Sunday-school all over the building the boys cried out: 

"Hypocrite! Hypocrite!" 

The perspiration started out of every pore of my 
body; I thought they were looking at me. I said to the 
little newsboys: 

"Who are you calling a hypocrite?" 

They mentioned the assistant's name. I asked the 
reason, and they said: 

"We saw him going into the theater." 

I had never said anything about the theater to those 
children, but they saw that man going in, and called 
him a hypocrite. They seemed to know it was no place 
for a Christian to go. He lost his influence entirely, 
withdrew from the school, and after a while gave up 
Christian work altogether. He was just swept along 
with the tide in Chicago and his influence was lost. 

Pull for the Shore 

A vessel was wrecked off the shore. Eager eyes were 
watching and strong arms manned the life-boat. For 



MOODY'S STORIES 39 

hours they tried to reach that vessel through the great 
breakers that raged and foamed on the sand-bank, but it 
seemed impossible. The boat appeared to be leaving 
the crew to perish. But after a while the captain and 
sixteen men were taken off, and the vessel went down. 

"When the life-boat came to you," said a friend, 
"did you expect it had brought some tools to repair 
your old ship?" 

"Oh, no," was the response; "she was a total wreck. 
Two of her masts were gone, and if we had stayed mend- 
ing her only a few minutes, we must have gone down 
sir." 

"When once off the old wreck and safe in the life- 
boat what remained for you to do?" 

"Nothing, sir, but just to pull for the shore." 

Man can't save himself. He has been wrecked by 
sin, and his only safety lies in taking Jesus Christ as his 
Savior. 

Easy, and Yet Difficult 

It is the easiest thing in the world to become a Chris- 
tian, and it is also the most difficult. You say: "That 
is a contradiction, a paradox." I will illustrate what I 
mean. 

A little nephew of mine, a few years ago, took my 
Bible and threw it down on the floor. His mother said, 

"Charlie, pick up uncle's Bible." 

The little fellow said he would not. 

"Charlie, do you know what that word means?" 

She soon found out that he did, and that he was not 
going to pick up the Book. His will had come right up 
against his mother's will. 

I began to be quite interested in the struggle; I knew 



40 MOODY'S STORIES 

if she did not break his will, he would some day break 
her heart. 

She repeated, "Charlie, go and pick up uncle's Bible, 
and put it on the table. " 

The little fellow said he could not do it. 

"I will punish you if you do not. " 

He saw a strange look in her eye, and the matter began 
to get serious. He did not want to be punished, and he 
knew his mother would punish him if he did not lift the 
Bible. So he straightened every bone and muscle in 
him, and he said he could not do it. I really believe the 
little fellow had reasoned himself into the belief that he 
could not do it. 

His mother knew he was only deceiving himself, so 
she kept him right to the point. At last he went down, 
put both his arms around the Bible, and tugged away at 
it; but he still said he could not do it. The truth was 
— he did not want to. He got up again without lifting it. 

The mother said, "Charlie, I am not going to talk to 
you any more. This matter has, to be settled; pick up 
that Bible, or I will punish you. " 

At last she broke his will, and then he found it as 
easy as it is for me to turn my hand. He picked up the 
Bible, and laid it on the table. 

So it is with the sinner; if you are really willing to 
take the Water of Life, you can do it. 

No Difference 

During the war, when enlisting was going on, some- 
times a man would come up with a nice silk hat on, 
patent-leather boots, kid gloves, and a fine suit of 
clothes; perhaps the next man who came along would 



MOODY'S STORIES 41 

be a hod-carrier, dressed in the poorest kind of clothes. 
Both had to strip alike and put on the regimental uni- 
form. 

When you come and say you are not fit, haven't got 
good clothes, haven't got righteousness enough to be a 
Christian, remember that Christ will furnish you with the 
uniform of heaven, and you will be set down at the mar- 
riage feast of the Lamb. I don't care how black and 
vile your heart may be, only accept the invitation of 
Jesus Christ, and He will make you fit to sit down with 
the rest at that feast. 

Drawing a Comparison 

When I was in California I went into a Sunday-school 
and asked: 

"Have you got some one who can write a plain hand?" 

"Yes." 

We got up the blackboard, and the lesson upon it 
proved to be the text, "Lay up for yourselves treasures 
in heaven." 

I said, "Suppose we write upon that board some of 
the earthly treasures? We will begin with 'gold.' " 

The teacher readily put down "gold," and they all 
comprehended it, for all had run to that country in hope 
of finding it. 

"Well, we will put down 'houses' next and then 'land. ' 
Next we will put down 'fast horses.' " 

They all understood what fast horses were — they 
knew a good deal more about fast horses than they knew 
about the kingdom of God. Some of them, I think, ac- 
tually made fast horses serve as gods. 

"Next we will put down 'tobacco.' " The teacher 
seemed to shrink at this. "Put it down," said I; 



42 MOODY'S STORIES 

"many a man thinks more of tobacco than he does of 
God. Well, then we will put down 'rum.' " 

He objected to this — didn't like to put it down at all. 

"Down with it! Many a man will sell his reputation, 
his home, his wife, his children, everything he has, for 
rum. It is the god of some men. Many here are ready 
to sell their present and their eternal welfare for it. Put 
it down," and down it went. 

"Now," said I, "suppose we put down some of the 
heavenly treasures. Put down 'Jesus' to head the list, 
then 'heaven,' then 'River of Life,' then 'Crown of 
Glory'," and went on until the column was filled, and 
then just drew a line and showed the heavenly and the 
earthly things in contrast 

My friends, they could not stand comparison. If a 
man does that, he cannot but see the superiority of the 
heavenly over the earthly treasures. 

It turned out that this teacher was not a Christian. 
He had gone to California on the usual hunt — gold; and 
when he saw the two columns, placed side by side, the 
excellence of the one over the other was irresistible, and 
he was the first soul God gave me on that Pacific coast. 
He accepted Christ, and that man came to the station 
when I was coming away and blessed me for coming to 
that place. 

A Legend about Doves 

There is a beautiful legend about a conference held 
by the doves to decide where they should make their 
abode. One suggested that they should go to the woods; 
but the objection was made that there they would be in 
danger from hawks; another mentioned the cities, but 
boys would stone them there, and drive them away or 



MOODY'S STORIES 43 

kill them. Presently some dove suggested that they 
go and hide in the clefts of the rocks, and there they 
were safe. "O ye that dwell in Moab, leave the cities 
and dwell in the rock, and be like the dove that maketh 
her nest in the sides of the hole's mouth. " 

Rock of Ages, cleft for me, 

Let me hide myself in thee. 

Look to Christ I 

A leading surgeon I heard of, when he has a bad 
wound to dress, or a broken limb to set, tells the patient: 

14 Now, look at the wound, see just how it looks, and 
then look at me!" 

So when you have seen the state your heart is in, 
look up to Christ, and nowhere else. 

Paying Attention to the Preacher 

There was an architect in Chicago who was converted. 
In giving his testimony, he said he had been in the habit 
of attending church for a great many years, but he could 
not say that he had really heard a sermon all the time. 
He said that when the minister gave out the text and 
began to preach, he used to settle himself in the corner 
of the pew and work out the plans of some building. He 
could not tell how many plans he had prepared while the 
minister was preaching. He was the architect for one 
or two companies; and he used to do all his planning in 
that way. 

You see, Satan came in between him and the preacher, 
and caught away the good seed of the Word. I have 
often preached to people, and have been perfectly 
amazed to find they could hardly tell one solitary word 
of the sermon ; even the text had completely gone from 
them. 



44 MOODY'S STORIES 

Better Make Sure 

"I hab hearn folks say, 'Hope I has 'ligion, but I 
doan know'; but I neber hearn a man say, 4 I hope's I 
has money, but I doan know.' Dat sorter 'ligion dat 
yer hopes ye's got, but doan know, ain't gwine to do 
no mo' good dan der money what yer hopes ye's got but 
doan know." 

Some Things Quite Plain 

An English army officer in India who had been living 
an impure life went round one evening to argue religion 
with the chaplain. During their talk the officer said: 

"Religion is all very well, but you must admit that 
there are difficulties — about the miracles, for instance." 

The chaplain knew the man and his besetting sin, and 
quietly looking him in the face, answered: 

"Yes; there are some things in the Bible not very 
plain, I admit; but the seventh commandment is very 
plain." 

Your Own Picture There 

The Bible is like an album. I go into a man's house, 
and while waiting for him, I take up an album and open 
it. I look at a picture. "Why, that looks like a man 
I know." I turn over and look at another. "Well, I 
know that man." I keep turning over the leaves. "Well, 
there is a man who lives in the same street as myself — 
he is my next-door neighbor." And then I come upon 
another, and see myself. 

My friends, if you read your Bibles you will find your 
own pictures there. It just describes you. You may be 
a Pharisee ; if so, turn to the third chapter of John, and 
see what Christ said to the Pharisee: "Except a man 
be born again he cannot enter the kingdom of God," 



MOODY'S STORIES 45 

But you may say: "I am not a Pharisee; I am a poor, 
miserable sinner, too bad to come to Him." Well, turn 
to the woman of Samaria, and see what Christ said to 
her. 

"That's Mel" 

While we were in London, Mr. Spurgeon one day in his 
orphanage told about the boys — that some of them had 
aunts and some cousins, and that nearly every boy had 
some friend that took an interest in him, and came to 
see him and gave him a little pocket money. One day, 
he said, while he stood there, a little boy came up to 
him and said: 

"Mr. Spurgeon, let me speak to you." 

The boy sat down between Mr. Spurgeon and the 
elder who was with him, and said: 

44 Mr. Spurgeon, suppose your father and mother were 
dead, and you didn't have any cousins, or aunts, or 
uncles or friends to come and give you pocket money, 
and give you presents, don't you think you would feel 
bad? Because that's me!" 

Said Mr. Spurgeon: "The minute he said that, I put 
my right hand down into my pocket and took out some 
money for him." 

Queer Ideas of Repentance 

The unconverted have a false idea about repentance; 
they think God is going to make them repent. I was 
once talking with a man on this subject, and he summed 
up his whole argument by saying: 

"Moody, it has never struck me yet." 

I said: "What has never struck you." 

"Well," he replied: "Some people it strikes, and 
some it doesn't. There was a good deal of interest in 



46 MOODY'S STORIES 

our town a few years ago, and some of my neighbors 
were converted, but it didn't strike me." 

That man thought that repentance was coming down 
some day to strike him like lightning. Another man 
said he expected some sensation, like cold chills down 
his back. 

Repentance isn't feeling. It is turning from sin to 
God. One of the best definitions was given by a sol- 
dier. Some one asked him how he was converted. He 
said: 

44 The Lord said to me, Halt! Attention! Right about 
face! March! and that was all there was in it." 

A Good Illustration 
A little child gives a good illustration of faith. Let 
the wind blow her hat into the river, and she does not 
worry; she knows her mother will get her another. She 
lives by faith. 

44 Come ! Come I Come!" 
A man in one of our meetings had been brought there 
against his will; he had come through some personal 
influence brought to bear upon him. When he got to 
the meeting, they were singing the chorus of a hymn: 

Come! oh, come to Me! 
Come! oh, come to Me! 
Weary, heavy-laden, 
Come! oh, come to Me! 

He said afterward he thought he never saw so many 
fools together in his life before. The idea of a number 
of men standing there singing, "Come! come! come!" 

When he started home he could not get this little 
word out of his head; it kept coming back all the time. 
He went into a saloon, and ordered some whisky, think- 



MOODY'S STORIES 47 

ing to drown it. But he could not; it still kept coming 
back. He went into another saloon, and drank some 
more whisky; but the words kept ringing in his ears: 
"Come! come! come!" He said to himself, "What a 
fool I am for allowing myself to be troubled in this way!" 
He went to a third saloon, had another glass, and finally 
got home. 

He went off to bed, but could not sleep; it seemed as 
if the very pillow kept whispering the word, "Come! 
Come!" He began to be angry with himself : "What 
a fool I was for ever going to that meeting at all!" 
When he got up he took the little hymn book, found the 
hymn, and read it over. 

"What nonsense!" he said to himself; "the idea of a 
rational man being disturbed by that hymn." 

He set fire to the hymn book, but he could not burn 
up the little word "Come!" 

He declared he would never go to another of the 
meetings; but the next night he came again. When he 
got there, strange to say, they were singing the same 
hymn. 

"There is that miserable old hymn again," he said; 
"what a fool I am for coming!" When the Spirit of 
God lays hold of a man, he does a good many things he 
did not intend to do. 

To make a long story short, that man rose in a meet- 
ing of young converts, and told the story that I have 
now told you. Pulling out the little hymn-book — for he 
had bought another copy — and opening it at this hymn, 
he said : 

"I think this hymn is the sweetest and the best in the 
English language. God blessed it to the saving of my 
soul. And yet this was the very hymn that I despised." 



48 MOODY'S STORIES 

Don't Scold 

lt He that winneth souls is wise." Do you want to 
win men? Do not drive or scold them. Do not try to 
tear down their prejudices before you begin to lead them 
to the truth. Some people think they have to tear down 
the scaffolding before they begin on the building. An 
old minister once invited a young brother to preach for 
him. The latter scolded the people, and when he got 
home, asked the old minister how he had done. He said 
he had an old cow, and when he wanted a good supply 
of milk, he fed the cow; he did not scold her. 

A Long Time to Reap 

A man died in the Columbus penitentiary some years 
ago who had spent over thirty years in hisxell. He was 
one of the millionaires of Ohio. Fifty years ago when 
they were trying to get a trunk road from Chicago to 
New York, they wanted to lay the line through his farm 
near Cleveland. He did not want his farm divided by 
the railroad, so the case went into court, where commis- 
sioners were appointed to pay the damages and to allow 
the road to be built. 

One dark night, a train was thrown off the track, and 
several were killed. This man was suspected, was tried 
and found guilty, and was sent to the penitentiary for 
life. The farm was soon cut up into city lots, and the 
man became a millionaire, but he got no benefit from it. 

It may not have taken him more than an hour to lay 
the obstruction on the railroad, but he was over thirty 
years reaping the result of that one act! 



MOODY'S STORIES 49 

"Asa Little Child " 

A little child is the most dependent thing on earth. 
All its resources are in its parents' love; all it can do is 
to cry; and its necessities explain the meaning to the 
mother's heart. If we interpret its language, it means: 
4 'Mother, wash me; I cannot wash myself. Mother, 
clothe me; I am naked, and cannot clothe myself. 
Mother, feed me ; I cannot feed myself. Mother, carry 
me; I cannot walk." It is written, "A mother may 
forget her sucking child; yet will not I forget thee." 

This it is to receive the Kingdom of God as a little 
child — to come to Jesus in our helplessness, and say: 
"Lord Jesus, wash me!" "Clothe me!" "Feed me!" 
"Carry me!" "Save me, Lord, or I perish." — Rains- 
ford. 

Following the Lamb 

A friend who lost all his children told me about being 
in an eastern country some time ago, and he saw a shep- 
herd going down to a stream, and he wanted to get his 
flock across. He went into the water and called them by 
name, but they came to the bank and bleated, and were 
too afraid to follow. At last he went back, tight- 
ened his girdle about his loins, took up two little lambs, 
and put one inside his frock, and another inside his 
bosom. Then he started into the water, and the old 
sheep looked up to the shepherd instead of down into the 
water. They wanted to see their little ones. So he got 
them over the water, and led them into the green pas- 
tures on the other side. 

How many times the Good Shepherd has come down 
here and taken a little lamb to the hill-tops of glory, and 
then the father and mother begin to look up and follow. 



50 MOODY'S STORIES 

Two Pictures 

A friend told me of a poor man who had sent his son 
to school in the city. One day the father was hauling 
some wood into the city, perhaps to pay his boy's bills. 
The young man was walking down the street with two of 
his school friends, all dressed in the very height of fash- 
ion. His father saw him, and was so glad that he left 
his wood, and went to the sidewalk to speak to him. But 
the boy was ashamed of his father, who had on his old 
working clothes, and spurned him, and said: 

"I don't know you." 

Will such a young man ever amount to anything? 
Never! 

There was a very promising young man in my Sunday- 
school in Chicago. His father was a confirmed drunk- 
ard, and his mother took in washing to educate her four 
children. This was her eldest son, and I thought that 
he was going to redeem the whole family. But one day 
a thing happened that made him go down in my estima- 
tion. 

The boy was in the high school, and was a very bright 
scholar. One day he stood with his mother at the cot- 
tage door — it was a poor house, but she could not pay 
for their schooling and feed and clothe her children and 
hire a very good house too out of her earnings. When 
they were talking a young man from the high school 
came up the street, and this boy walked away from his 
mother. Next day the young man said: 

4 'Who was that I saw you talking to yesterday?" 

"Oh, that was my washerwoman." 

I said: "Poor fellow! He will never amount to 
anything." 



MOODY'S STORIES 



That was a good many years ago. I have kept my eye 
on him. He has gone down, down, down, and now he 
is just a miserable wreck. Of course, he would go 
down! Ashamed of his mother that loved him and 
toiled for him, and bore so much hardship for him! I 
cannot tell you the contempt I had for that one act. 

Let us look at — 

A Brighter Picture 

Some years ago I heard of a poor woman who sent 
her boy to school and college. When he was to gradu- 
ate, he wrote his mother to come, but she sent back 
word that she could not because her best skirt had 
already been turned once. She was so shabby that she 
was afraid he would be ashamed of her. He wrote back 
that he didn't care how she was dressed, and urged so 
strongly that she went. He met her at the station, and 
took her to a nice place to stay. The day came for his 
graduation, and he walked down the broad aisle with 
that poor mother dressed very shabbily, and put her into 
one of the best seats in the house. To her great sur- 
prise he was the valedictorian of the class, and he car- 
ried everything before him. He won a prize, and when 
it was given to him, he stepped down before the whole 
audience and kissed his mother, and said: 

"Here, mother, here is the prize! It's yours. I 
would not have won it if it had not been for you." 

Thank God for such a man ! 

The Folly of Covetousness 

The folly of covetousness is well shown in the fol- 
lowing extract: 

44 If you should see a man that had a large pond of 
water, yet living in continual thirst, nor suffering himself 



52 MOODY'S STORIES 

to drink half a draught for fear of lessening his pond; if 
you should see him wasting his time and strength in 
fetching more water to his pond, always thirsty, yet 
always carrying a bucket of water in his hand, watching 
early and late to catch the drops of rain, gaping after 
every cloud, and running greedily into every mire and 
mud in hopes of water, and always studying how to make 
every ditch empty itself into the pond; if you should see 
him grow gray in these anxious labors, and at last end 
a thirsty life by falling into his own pond, would you not 
say that such a one was not only the author of his own 
disquiet, but was foolish enough to be reckoned among 
madmen? But foolish and absurd as this character is, it 
does not represent half the follies and absurd disquiets 
of the covetous man." 

I have read of a millionaire in France, who was a 
miser. In order to make sure of his wealth, he dug a 
cave in his wine cellar so large and deep that he could 
go down into it with a ladder. The entrance had a door 
with a spring lock. After a time, he was missing. 
Search was made, but they could find no trace of him. 
At last his house was sold, and the purchaser discovered 
this door in the cellar. He opened it, went down, and 
found the miser lying dead on the ground, in the midst 
of his riches. The door must have shut accidentally 
after him, and he perished miserably. 

What is Needed 
Nine-tenths, at least, of our church members never 
think of speaking for Christ. If they see a man, per- 
haps a near relative, going right down to ruin, going 
rapidly, they never think of speaking to him about his 
sinful course and of seeking to win him to Christ. Now, 



MOODY'S STORIES 53 

certainly there must be something wrong. And yet 
when you talk with them you find they have faith, and 
you cannot say they are not children of God; but they 
have not the power, the liberty, the love that real dis- 
ciples of Christ should have. 

A great many think that we need new measures, new 
churches, new organs, new choirs, and all these new 
things. That is not what the Church of God needs 
to-day. It is the old power that the apostles had. If 
we have that in our churches, there will be new life. 

I remember when in Chicago many were toiling in 
the work, and it seemed as though the car of salvation 
didn't move on, when a minister began to cry out from 
the very depths of his heart: 

"Oh, God, put new ministers in every pulpit. " 

Next Monday I heard two or three men stand up and 
say, "We had a new minister last Sunday — the same old 
minister, but he had got new power," and I firmly believe 
that is what we want to-day all over America-— new min- 
isters in the pulpit and new people in the pews. We 
want people quickened by the Spirit of God. 

Neglecting Church 

A minister rebuked a farmer for not attending church, 
and said: 

"You know, John, you are never absent from mar- 
ket." 

"Oh," was the reply, "we must go to market." 

Oratorical Preaching 

My friends, we have too many orators in the pulpit. 

lam tired and sick of your "silver-tongued orators." 

I used to mourn because I couldn't be an orator. I 

thought, Oh, if I could only have the gift of speech like 



54 MOODY'S STORIES 

some men! I have heard men with a smooth flow of 
language take the audience captive; but they came and 
they went. Their voice was like the air — there wasn't 
any power back of it; they trusted in their eloquence and 
their fine speeches. That is what Paul was thinking of 
when he wrote to the Corinthians: "My speech and my 
preaching was not with enticing words of man's wisdom, 
but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power: that 
your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men, but 
in the power of God." 

Take a witness in court and let him try his oratorical 
powers in the witness-box, and see how quickly the 
judge will rule him out. It is the man who tells the 
plain, simple truth that has the most influence with the 
jury. 

Suppose that Moses had prepared a speech for Pha- 
raoh, and had got his hair all smoothly brushed, and had 
stood before the looking-glass, or had gone to an elocu- 
tionist to be taught how to make an oratorical speech 
and how to make gestures. Suppose that he had but- 
toned his coat, put one hand in his chest, had struck an 
attitude, and begun: 

"The God of our fathers, the God of Abraham, 
Isaac, and Jacob, has commanded me to come into the 
presence of the noble King of Egypt." 

I think they would have taken his head right off! 
They had Egyptians who could be as eloquent as Moses. 
It was not eloquence they wanted. 

To Which Class Do You Belong ? 

Some one has said that there are three classes of peo- 
ple: the "wills," the "won'ts," and the "can'ts"; the 
first accomplish everything, the second oppose every- 
thing, and the third fail in everything. 



MOODY'S STORIES 55 



Sunday Work 

A Christian man was once urged by his employer to 
work on Sunday. 

"Does not your Bible say that if your ass falls into a 
pit on the Sabbath, you may pull him out?" 

"Yes," replied the other; "but if the ass had the 
habit of falling into the same pit every Sabbath, I would 
either fill up the pit or sell the ass," 

There Must Be Roots 

Suppose I hire two men to set out trees, and after a 
day or two I go out to see how they are getting along. 
I find that one man has set out a hundred trees, and the 
other only ten. I say: 

"Look here; what does this mean? That man has 
set out a hundred trees, and you have set out only ten. 
What does it mean?" 

"Yes, but he has cut off all the roots, and just stuck 
the tops into the ground." 

I go to the other man, and say: "What does this 
mean? Why have you planted all of these trees without 
roots?" 

"I don't believe in roots; they are of no account. 
My trees look just as well as his." 

But when the sun blazes upon the trees, they all 
wither and die. 

There are a lot of people running around who haven't 
got any roots. A good many live on negations. They 
are always telling what they dorit believe. I want a 
man to tell me what he does believe, not what he does 
not believe. And I like to meet a positive man. We 
just want to know what men do believe. We don't want 
trees that haven't any roots, for they will dry up when 



$6 MOODY'S STORIES 

the sun blazes on them. There are a good many per- 
sons that are going on without any foundation; they 
have no faith. 

The Path of Obedience 

Whatsoever He tells you to do, do. But be sure He 
says it. Don't take your ideas. Go and live right at 
home, go and treat your wife and children right, pay your 
debts, and do some things of that kind. 

A colored man said he had seen a sign ; he said it 
read, "G. P. C.," and he understood it to mean, "Go 
preach Christ. " 

Another man got up, and said. "No, that ain/t it; it 
is 'Go pick cotton/ " 

If it is preach the gospel, go preach the gospel ; and if 
it is pick cotton, then pick cotton. 

Calling a Man a Liar 

You cannot offer a man a greater insult than to tell 
him he is a liar. Unbelief is telling God He is a liar. 

Suppose a man said, "Mr. Moody, I have no faith in 
you whatever. " Don't you think it would grieve me? 
There is not anything that would wound a man much 
more than to be told that you do not have any faith in 
him. 

A great many men say, "Oh, I have profound rever- 
ence and respect for God." 

Yes, profound respect, but not faith. Why, it is a 
downright insult! 

Suppose a man says, "Mr. Moody, I have profound 
respect for you, profound admiration for you, but I do 
not believe a word you say. " 

I wouldn't give much for his respect or admiration ; 
I wouldn't give much for his friendship. God wants us 



MOODY'S STORIES 57 

to put our faith in Him. How it would wound a mother's 
feelings to hear her children say, "I do love mamma so 
much, but I don't believe what she says " How it would 
grieve that mother. And that is about the way a great 
many of God's professed children talk. Some men 
seem to think it is a great misfortune that they do not 
have faith. Bear in mind it is not a misfortune, but it 
is the damning sin of the world. 

Bending His Will 

A mother told me up in Minnesota that she had a lit- 
tle child who took a book and threw it out of the win- 
dow. She told him to go and pick it up. The little 
boy said, "I won't." 

She said, "What?" 

He said again, "I won't." 

She said: "You must. Go and pick up that book." 

He said he couldn't do it. She took him out, and 
she held him right to it. Dinner-time came, and he 
hadn't picked up the book. She took him to dinner, 
and after it was over she took him out again. They sat 
there until tea-time. When tea-time came she took him 
in and gave him his supper, and then took him out and 
kept him there until bed-time. The next morning she 
went out again and kept him there until dinner-time. He 
found he was in for a life job, and he picked the book up. 

She said she never had any trouble with the child 
afterward. Mothers, if you don't make your boy obey 
when he is young, he will break your heart. 

How To Find the Thirsty 
When preaching in Chicago, Dr. Monro Gibson once 
asked in the inquiry meeting, "Now, how can we find 
out who is thirsty? I was just thinking how we could 



58 MOODY'S STORIES 

find out. If a boy should come down the aisle, bringing 
a good pail full of clear water and a dipper, we would 
soon find out who was thirsty. The thirsty men and 
women would reach out for water; but if he should walk 
down the aisle with an empty bucket, we wouldn't find 
out. People would look in and see that there was no 
water, and say nothing. So," said he, "I think that is 
the reason we are not more blessed in our ministry; we 
are carrying around empty buckets, and the people see 
that we have not anything in them, and they don't come 
forward." 

Making Parables 

Stewart Robertson met Marshall, the great politician, 
and Marshall said: 

"Why don't you preach in parables like your Master?" 

Robertson said: "I would if I knew enough. I wish 
you would make me a few." 

He never could get to see him from that day until one 
day he met him on a corner, and he said: 

"Marshall, where are those parables?" 

"I knew you would be after me, but I give it up. 
I tried, but I couldn't make them. I didn't know it 
was so hard." 

People say, "Oh, any one can make up a sermon." 
But if you think so, just try it! 

A Father's Mistake 

The story is told that a man once said he would not 
talk to his son about religion; the boy should make his 
own choice when he grew up, unprejudiced by him. 

The boy broke his arm, and when the doctor was 
setting it, he cursed and swore the whole time. The 
father was quite grieved and shocked. 



MOODY'S STO-' 



"Ah," said the doctor, "you were afraid to preju- 
dice the boy in the right way, but the devil had no such 
prejudice. He has led your son the other way." 

The idea that a father is to let his children run 
wild! Nature alone never brings forth anything but 
weeds. 

A Rum-Seller's Son Blows His Brains Out 

Look at that rum-seller. When we talk to him he 
laughs at us. He tells you there is no hell, no future — 
there is no retribution. I've got one man in my mind 
now who ruined nearly all the sons in his neighborhood. 
Mothers and fathers went to him and begged him not to 
sell their children liquor. He told them it was his busi- 
ness to sell liquor, and he was going to sell liquor to 
every one who came. The saloon was a blot upon the 
place as dark as hell. 

But the man had a father's heart. He had a son. 
He didn't worship God, but he worshiped that boy. He 
didn't remember that whatsoever a man soweth so shall 
he reap. My friends, they generally reap what they sow. 
It may not come immediately, but the retribution will 
surely come. If you ruin other men's sons, some other 
man will ruin yours. Bear in mind God is a God of 
equity; God is a God of justice. He is not going to 
allow you to ruin others and escape yourself. If we go 
against His laws, we suffer. 

Time rolled on, and that young man became a slave 
to drink, and his life became such a burden to him that 
he put a revolver to his head and blew his brains out. 
The father lived a few years, but his life was as bitter as 
gall, and then went down to his grave in sorrow. Ah, 
my friends, it is hard to kick against the pricks. 



»Y'S STORIES 



Mrs. Moody Teaching Her Child 

There was a time when our little boy did not like to 
go to church, and would get up in the morning and say 
to his mother: 

"What day is to-morrow?" 

" Tuesday.' ' 

"Next day?" 

"Wednesday." 

"Next day?" 

"Thursday"; and so on, till he came to the answer, 
"Sunday." 

"Dear me," he said. 

I said to the mother, "We cannot have our boy grow 
up to hate Sunday in this way; that will never do. That 
is the way I used to feel when I was a boy. I used to 
look upon Sunday with a certain amount of dread. Very 
few kind words were associated with the day. I don't 
know that the minister even noticed me, unless it was 
when I was asleep in the gallery, and he had some one 
wake me up. This kind of thing won't do. We must 
make the Sunday the most attractive day of the week; 
not a day to be dreaded, but a day of pleasure." 

Well, the mother took the work up with this boy. 
Bless those mothers in their work with the children! 
Sometimes I feel as if I would rather be the mother of 
John Wesley or Martin Luther or John Knox than have 
all the glories in the world. Those mothers who are 
faithful with the children God has given them will not 
go unrewarded. 

My wife went to work, and took Bible stories and put 
those blessed truths in a light that the boy could com- 
prehend, and soon his feeling for the Sabbath was the 
other way. 



MOODY'S STORIES 6l 

"What day's to-morrow?" he would ask. 

"Sunday." 

"I am glad." 

If we make Bible truths interesting, and break them 
up in some shape so that these children can get at them, 
then they will begin to enjoy them. 

Missed At Last ! 

In one of the tenement houses in New York City a 
doctor was sent for. He came, and found a young man 
very sick. When he got to the bedside the young man 
said: 

"Doctor, I don't want you to deceive me; I want to 
know the worst. Is this illness to prove serious?" 

After the doctor had made an examination, he said, 
"I am sorry to tell you you cannot live out the 
night." 

The young man looked up and said, "Well, then, I 
have missed it at last!" 

"Missed what?" 

"I have missed eternal life. I always intended to 
become a Christian some day, but I thought I had plenty 
of time, and put it off." 

The doctor, who was himself a Christian man, said: 
"It is not too late. Call on God for mercy." 

"No; I have always had a great contempt for a man 
who repents when he is dying; he is a miserable coward. 
If I were not sick, I would not have a thought about my 
soul, and I am not going to insult God now." 

The doctor spent the day with him, read to him out 
of the Bible, and tried to get him to lay hold of the 
promises. The young man said he would not call on 
God, and in that state of mind he passed away. Just as 



62 MOODY'S STORIES 

he was dying the doctor saw his lips moving. He reached 
down, and all he could hear was the faint whisper: 

' '/ have missed it at last!' * 

Dear friend, make sure that you do not miss eternal 
life at last. 

Choose Now 

A teacher had been relating to his class the parable 
of the rich man and Lazarus, and he asked : 

"Now, which would you rather be, boys, the rich man 
or Lazarus?* ' 

One boy answered, "I would rather be the rich man 
while I live, and Lazarus when I die." 

That cannot be. 

The Mansion Made Ready 

Once when I was traveling to a city there was a lady 
in the car with me. After I had reached the hotel where 
I was to stay, and had got comfortable quarters, she 
came, and -said: 

4 'Oh, sir, I cannot get a room in this hotel; they are 
quite full! How ever did you manage to get a room?" 

"Easily enough," I replied; "I just telegraphed on 
before that I was coming, to have a room ready for me." 

And it is somewhat similar in regard to gaining 
admission to heaven. Your names must be sent on 
beforehand, and entered in its book, else you won't get 
in; but get your names inscribed on its pages, and then 
you won't be disappointed. God will have a mansion 
ready for you when you ascend to your heavenly home. 
When you come to its gates, the guardian angels will 
refer to the book of life to see if your name is there. If 
so, pass in; but if not, admittance will be inexorably 
refused. 



♦MOODY'S STORIES 63 

The Promise For All 

Every one of GocTs proclamations is connected with 
that word "whosoever" — "whosoever believeth," "who- 
soever will." I think it was Richard Baxter said he 
thanked God for that "whosoever. " He would a good 
deal rather have that word "whosoever" than Richard 
Baxter; for if it was Richard Baxter, he should have 
thought it was some other Richard Baxter who had lived 
and died before him ; but "whosoever" he knew included 
him. 

I heard of a woman once that thought there was no 
promise in the Bible for her; she thought the promises 
were for some one else, not for her. There are a good 
many of these people in the world. They think it is too 
good to be true that they can be saved for nothing. 
This woman one day got a letter, and when she opened it 
she found it was not for her at all ; it was meant for 
another woman that had the same name ; and she had 
her eyes opened to the fact that if she should find some 
promise in the Bible directed to her name, she would not 
know whether it meant her or some one else that bore 
her name. But you know the word "whosoever" includes 
every one in the wide world. 

Reaping As They Sowed 

Although God forgave the sins of Jacob and David, 
and the other Old Testament saints, yet there were cer- 4 
tain consequences of their sins which those saints had 
to suffer after they were forgiven. 

If a man gets drunk and goes out and breaks his leg, 
so that it must be amputated, God will forgive him if he 
asks it, but he will have to hop around on one leg all his 
life. A man may sow thistle-seed with grain-seed in a 



64 MOODY'S STORIES 

moment of pique against his master, and the master may 
forgive him, but the man will have to reap the thistles 
with the grain. 

Small Beginnings 

An obscure man preached one Sunday to a few per- 
sons in a Methodist chapel in the South of England. A 
boy of fifteen years of age was in the audience, driven 
into the chapel by a snowstorm. The man took as his 
text the words, "Look unto me and be ye saved,'' and 
as he stumbled along as best he could, the light of 
heaven flashed into that boy's heart. He went out of 
the chapel saved, and soon became known as C. H. 
Spurgeon, the boy-preacher. 

The parsonage at Epworth, England, caught fire one 
night, and all the inmates were rescued except one son. 
The boy came to a window, and was brought safely to 
the ground by two farm-hands, one standing on the 
shoulder of the other. The boy was John Wesley. If 
you would realize the responsibility of that incident, if 
you would measure the consequences of that rescue, ask 
the millions of Methodists who look back to John Wesley 
as the founder of their denomination. 

Saying and Doing 

A man was once conversing with a Brahmin priest, 
and he asked: 

"Could you say, 'I am the Resurrection and the 
Life?' " 

"Yes," replied the priest, "I could say that." 

"But could you make any one believe itV\ 

Christ proved His superiority right there. His char- 
acter and His actions were back of His words. He 
exhibited His divine power to silence His enemies. 



MOODY'S STORIES 65 

Climb Higher 

I remember being in a meeting after the Civil War 
had been going on for about six months. The army of 
the North had been defeated at Bull Run; in fact, we 
had nothing but defeat, and it looked as though the 
Republic was going to pieces; so we were much cast 
down and discouraged. At this meeting every speaker 
for a while seemed as if he had hung his harp upon the 
willow; it was one of the gloomiest meetings I ever 
attended. Finally an old man with beautiful white hair 
got up to speak, and his face literally shone. 

"Young men," he said, "you do not talk like sons of 
the King. Though it is dark just here, remember it is 
light somewhere else." Then he went on to say that if 
it were dark all over the world, it was light up around 
the Throne. 

He told us he had come from the East, where a friend 
had described to him how he had been up a mountain to 
spend the night and see the sun rise. As the party were 
climbing up the mountain, and before they had reached 
the summit, a storm came on. This friend said to the 
guide: 

"I will give this up; take me back." 

The guide smiled, and replied: "I think we shall get 
above the storm soon." 

On they went; and it was not long before they got up 
to where it was as calm as any summer evening. Down 
in the valley a terrible storm raged; they could hear the 
thunder rolling, and see the lightning's flash; but all was 
serene on the mountain top. 

"And so, my young friends," continued the old man, 



66 MOODY'S STORIES 

"though all is dark around you, come a little higher, 
and the darkness will flee away." 

Often when I have been inclined to get discouraged, I 
have thought of what he said. If you are down in the 
valley amidst the thick fog and the darkness, get a little 
higher; get nearer to Christ, and know more of Him. 

The Greatest Miracle 

Jesus said, "The works that I do shall ye do also, and 
greater works than these shall ye do because I go to the 
Father." 

I used to stumble over that. I didn't understand it. 
I thought what greater work could any man do than 
Christ had done? How could any one raise a dead man 
who had been laid away in the sepulchre for days, and 
who had already begun to turn back to dust; how with a 
word could he call him forth? 

But the longer I live the more I am convinced it is a 
greater thing to influence a man's will; a man whose will 
is set against God ; to have that will broken and brought 
into subjection to God's will— or, in other words, it is a 
greater thing to have power over a living, sinning, God- 
hating man, than to quicken the dead. He who could 
create a world could speak a dead soul into life; but I 
think the greatest miracle this world has ever seen was 
the miracle at Pentecost. Here were men who surrounded 
the apostles, full of prejudice, full of malice, full. of bit- 
terness, their hands, as it were, dripping with the blood 
of the Son of God, and yet an unlettered man, a man 
whom they detested, a man whom they hated, stands up 
and preaches the Gospel, and three thousand of them are 
immediately convicted and converted, and become dis- 
ciples of the Lord Jesus Christ. 



MOODY'S STORIES 67 

Different Kinds of Murder 

One young man at college, an only son, whose mother 
wrote to him remonstrating against his gambling and 
drinking habits, took the letters out of the post-office, 
and when he found that they were from her, he tore 
them up without reading them. She said: 

"I thought I would die when I found I had lost my 
hold on that son." 

If a boy kills his mother by his conduct, you can't call 
it anything else than murder, and he is as truly guilty of 
breaking the sixth commandment as if he drove a dagger 
to her heart. 

"It Is Not For You!" 

Commenting on the text: "It is not for you to know 
the times or the seasons, which the Father hath put in 
His own power," Spurgeon said: 

44 If I were introduced into a room where a large num- 
ber of parcels were stored up, and I was told that there 
was something good for me, I should begin to look for 
that which had my name upon it, and when I came upon 
a parcel and 1 saw in pretty big letters, '// is not for you,' 
I should leave it alone. Here, then, is a casket of knowl- 
edge marked, *It is not for you to know the times or the 
seasons, which the Father hath put in His own power. ' 
Cease to meddle with matters which are concealed, and 
be satisfied to know the things which are clearly re- 
vealed." 

Stolen Goods a Burden 

I heard of a boy who stole a cannon-ball from a navy- 
yard. He watched his opportunity, sneaked into the 
yard, and secured it. But when he had it, he hardly 
knew what to do with it. It was heavy, and too large 



68 MOODY'S STORIES 

to conceal in his pocket, so he had to put it under his 
hat. When he got home with it, he dared not show it to 
his parents, because it would have led at once to his 
detection. 

He said in after years it was the last thing he ever 
stole. 

The story is told that a royal diamond valued at 
$600,000 was stolen from a window of a jeweler, to 
whom it had been given to set. A few months afterward 
a miserable man died a miserable death in a poor lodg- 
ing-house. In his pocket was found the diamond, and a 
letter telling how he had not dared to sell it, lest it 
should lead to his discovery and imprisonment. It 
never brought him anything but anxiety and pain 

Unlocked By Prayer 
God's best gifts, like valuable jewels, are kept under 
lock and key, and those who want them must, with fer- 
vent faith, importunately ask for them; for God is the 
rewarder of them that diligently seek Him. 

The Faithful Promiser 

God is always true to what He promises to do. He 
made promises to Abraham, Jacob, Moses, Joshua, and 
the others, and did He not fulfill them? He will fulfill 
every word of what He has promised; yet how few take 
Him at His word ! 

When I was a young man I was clerk in the establish- 
ment of a man in Chicago, whom I observed frequently 
occupied sorting and marking bills. He explained to me 
what he had been doing; on some notes he had marked 
B, on some D, and on others G; those marked B, he 
told me, were bad, those marked D meant they were 



MOODY'S STORIES 69 

doubtful, and those with G on them mean they were 
good; and, said he, you must treat all of them accord- 
ingly. And thus people indorse God's promises, by 
marking some as bad and others as doubtful; whereas 
we ought to take all of them as good, for He has never 
once broken His word, and all that He says He will do, 
will be done in the fullness of time. 

Throw Out the Ballast 
When men go up in a balloon, they carry with them 
what they call ballast — that is, small bags of sand, and 
when they want to rise higher they just throw out some 
of the sand. So we, if we want to rise nearer heaven, 
must just throw out some of the sand, and cast aside 
every weight. We won't rise higher till we do so. 

A Mother's Love 

The closest tie on earth is a mother's love for her 
child. There are a good many things that will separate 
a man from his wife, but there isn't a thing in the wide, 
wide world that will separate a true mother from her own 
child. I will admit that there are unnatural mothers, 
that there are mothers that have gone out of their heads, 
mothers that are so steeped in sin and iniquity that they 
will turn against their own children, but a true mother 
will never, never turn against her own child. I have 
talked with mothers when my blood boiled with indigna- 
tion against the sons for their treatment of their mothers, 
and I have said : 

"Why don't you cast him off?" 

They have said: "Why, Mr. Moody, I love him still. 
He is my son." 

I was once preaching for Dr. G. in St. Louis, and 



70 MOODY'S STORIES 

when I got through he said that he wanted to tell me a 
story. There was a boy who was very bad. He had a 
very bad father, who seemed to take delight in teaching 
his son everything that was bad. The father died, and 
the boy went on from bad to worse until he was arrested 
for murder. 

When he was on trial, it came out that he had mur- 
dered five other people, and from one end of the city to 
the other there was a universal cry going up against him. 
During his trial they had to guard the court-house, the 
indignation was so intense. 

The white-haired mother got just as near her son as 
she could, and every witness that went into the court 
and said anything against him seemed to hurt her more 
than her son. When the jury brought in a verdict of 
guilty a great shout went up, but the old mother nearly 
fainted away; and when the judge pronounced the sen- 
tence of death they thought she would faint away. 

After it was over she threw her arms around him and 
kissed him, and there in the court they had to tear him 
from her embrace. She then went the length and 
breadth of the city trying to get men to sign a petition 
for his pardon. And when he was hanged, she begged 
the governor to let her have the body of her son, that 
she might bury it. They say that death has torn dawn 
everything in this world, everything but a mother's love. 
That is stronger than death itself. The governor refused 
to let her have the body, but she cherished the memory 
of that boy as long as she lived. 

A few months later she followed her boy, and when 
she was dying she sent word to the governor, and begged 
that her body might be laid close to her son. That is a 
mother's love! She wasn't ashamed to have her grave 



MOODY'S STORIES 71 

pointed out for all time as the grave of the mother of the 
most noted criminal the State of Vermont ever had. 

The prophet takes hold of that very idea. He says: 
"Can a mother forget her child?" But a mother's love 
is not to be compared to the love of God. 

Restitution 

I was preaching in British Columbia some years ago 
and a young man came to me, and wanted to become a 
Christian. He had been smuggling opium into the 
States. 

"Well, my friend," I said, "I don't think there is any 
chance for you to become a Christian until you make 
restitution." He said, "If I attempt to do that, I will 
fall into the clutches of the law, and I will go to the 
penitentiary." "Well," I replied, "you had better do 
that than go to the judgment-seat of God with that sin 
upon your soul, and have eternal punishment. The 
Lord will be very merciful if you set your face to do 
right." 

He went away sorrowful, but came back the next day, 
and said: "I have a young wife and child, and all the 
furniture in my house I have bought with money I have 
got in this dishonest way. If I become a Christian, that 
furniture will have to go, and my wife will know it." 

"Better let your wife know it, and better let your 
home and furniture go." 

"Would you come up and see my wife?" he asked; "I 
don't know what she will say." 

I went up to see her, and when I told her, the tears 
trickled down her cheeks, and she said: "Mr. Moody, 
I will gladly give everything if my husband can become 
a true Christian. " 



72 MOODY'S STORIES 

She took out her pocketbook, and handed over her 
last penny. He had a piece of land in the United 
States, which he deeded over to the government. I do 
not know, in all my backward track, of any living man 
who has had a better testimony for Jesus Christ than 
that man. He had been dishonest, but when the truth 
came to him that he must make it right before God 
would help him, he made it right. 

No amount of weeping over sin, and saying that you 
feel sorry, is going to help it unless you are willing to 
confess and make restitution. 

Willie and the Bears 

I said to my little family, one morning, a few weeks 
before the Chicago fire, "I am coming home this after- 
noon to give you a ride." 

My little boy clapped his hands. "Oh, papa, will 
you take me to see the bears in Lincoln Park?" 

'.'Yes."" 

I had not been gone long when my little boy said, 
4 'Mamma, I wish you would get me ready." 

"Oh," she said, "it will be a long time before papa 
comes." 

"But I want to get ready, mamma." 

At last he was ready to have the ride, face washed, 
and clothes all nice and clean. 

"Now, you must take good care, and not get your- 
self dirty again," said mamma. 

Of course, he was going to take care; he wasn't going 
to get dirty! So off he ran to watch for me. However, 
it was a long time yet until the afternoon, and after a 
little he began to play. When I got home, I found him 
outside, with his face all covered with dirt. 



MOODY'S STORIES 73 

44 I can't take you to the park that way, Willie." 

"Why, papa? you said you would take me." 

44 Ah, but I can't; you're all over mud. I couldn't 
be seen with such a dirty little boy." 

44 Why, I'se clean, papa; mamma washed me." 

44 Well, you've got dirty again." 

But he began to cry, and I could not convince him 
that he was dirty. 

44 I'se clean; mamma washed me!" he cried. 

Do you think I argued with him? No. I just took 
him up in my arms, and carried him into the house, and 
showed him his face in the looking-glass. He had not a 
word to say. He would not take my word for it; but 
one look at the glass was enough; he saw it for himself. 
He didn't say he wasn't dirty after that! 

Now, the looking-glass showed him that his face was 
dirty — but I did not take the looking-glass to wash it; of 
course not. Yet that is just what thousands of people 
do. The Law is the looking-glass to see ourselves in, 
to show us how vile and worthless we are in the sight of 
God ; but they take the Law and try to wash themselves 
with it, instead of being washed in the blood of the 
Lamb. 

Christ For All 

An old Welshwoman said Christ was Welsh, and an 
Englishman said: 

44 No, He was a Jew." 

She declared that she knew He was Welsh, because 
He spoke so that she could understand Him. 

Starting Right 
Many a man is lost because he does not start right. 
He makes a bad start. A young man comes from his 



74 MOODY'S STORIES 

country home, and enters upon city life. Temptation 
arises, and he becomes false to his principles. He meets 
with some scoffing, sneering man, who jeers at him 
because he goes to a church service; or because he is 
seen reading his Bible; or because he is known to pray 
to God. And the young man proves to be weak-kneed; 
he cannot stand the scoffs and the sneers and the jeers 
of his companions; and so he becomes untrue to his 
principles, and gives them up. 

I want to say here to young men, that when a young 
man makes a wrong start, in ninety-nine cases out of a 
hundred it is ruin to him. The first game of chance; 
the first betting transaction ; the first false entry in the 
books; the first quarter-dollar taken from the cash-box 
or the till; the first night spent in evil company — either 
of these may prove the turning-point; either of these 
may represent a wrong start. 

Napoleon and the Conscript 

There is a well-known story told of Napoleon the 
First's time. In one of the conscriptions, during one of 
his many wars, a man was balloted as a conscript who 
did not want to go, but he had a friend who offered to 
go in his place. His friend joined the regiment in his 
name, and was sent off to the war. By and by a battle 
came on, in which he was killed, and they buried him on 
the battle-field. Some time after, the Emperor wanted 
more men, and by some mistake the first man was 
balloted a second time. They went to take him, but he 
remonstrated. 

44 You cannot take me." 

"Why not?" 

i4 I am dead," was the reply. 



MOODY'S STORIES 75 

4 'You are not dead; you are alive and well." 

"But I am dead," he said. 

"Why, man, you must be mad. Where did you die?" 

"At such a battle, and you left me buried on such a 
battle-field." 

"You talk like a madman," they cried; but the man 
stuck to his point that he had been dead and buried some 
months. 

"Look up your books," he said, "and see if it is not 
so." 

They looked, and found that he was right. They 
found the man's name entered as drafted, sent to the 
war, and marked off as killed. 

"Look here," they said, "you didn't die; you must 
have got some one to go for you; it must have been 
your substitute, 

"I know that," he said; "he died in my stead. You 
cannot touch me; I died in that man, and I go free. 
The law has no claim against me." 

They would not recognize the doctrine of substitution, 
and the case was carried to the Emperor. He said that 
the man was right, that he was dead and buried in the 
eyes of the law, and that France had no claim against 
him. 

This story may or may not be true, but one thing I 
know is true: Jesus Christ suffered death for the sinner, 
and those who accept Him are free from the Law. 

Green Fields or Desert ? 

When I was out in California, the first time I went 
down from the Sierra Nevada Mountains and dropped 
into the Valley of the Sacramento, I was surprised to 
find on one farm that everything about it was green — all 



76 MOODY'S STORIES 

the trees and flowers, everything was blooming, and 
everything was green and beautiful, and just across the 
hedge everything was dried up, and there was not a 
green thing there. I could not understand it. I made 
inquiries, and I found that the man that had everything 
green, irrigated; he just poured the water right on, and 
kept everything green, while the fields that were next to 
his were as dry as Gideon's fleece without a drop of dew. 

So it is with a great many in the church to-day. They 
are like these farms in California — a dreary desert, every- 
thing parched and desolate, and apparently no life in 
them. They can sit next to a man who is full of the 
Spirit of God, who is like a green bay tree, and who is 
bringing forth fruit, and yet they will not seek a similar 
blessing. 

Well, why this difference? Because God has poured 
water on him that was thirsty; that is the difference. 
One has been seeking this anointing, and he has received 
it; and when we want this above everything else God will 
surely give it to us. 

Religion In the Home 

What we want is family piety, righteousness in our 
homes. A young minister came to me, and said he 
couldn't get along with his wife, and what should he do? 
I told him to get out of the ministry. A man has no 
right to be in the pulpit unless he can get along with his 
family. 

A Universal Failing 

It is a false idea that all pride is confined to the upper 
classes. You will find it in the lanes and alleys. You 
will find little dirty, barefooted children who will get a 
string of shavings, put it round their necks, and strut 



MOODY'S STORIES 77 

down the street as if they were wearing golden beads. 
Pride is born and grows in the human heart. You do 
not plant it there; it grows there of itself. There is as 
much pride among the poor as among the rich; and that 
is one reason why more of them do not come to the Lord 
Jesus Christ: they do not like to be laughed at, scoffed 
at, sneered at, and ridiculed. It costs them too much. 

Words and Actions 
A man may preach with the eloquence of an angel, 
but if he doesn't live what he preaches, and act out in his 
home and his business what he professes, his testimony 
goes for naught, and the people say it is all hypocrisy 
after all; it is all a sham. Words are very empty, if 
there is nothing back of them. Your testimony is poor 
and worthless, if there is not a record back of that testi- 
mony consistent with what you profess. What we need 
is to pray to God to lift us up out of this low, cold, formal 
state that we live in, that we may dwell in the atmos- 
phere of God continually, and that the Lord may lift 
upon us the light of His countenance, and that we may 
shine in this world, reflecting His grace and glory. 

The One-Eyed Doe 

There is an old fable that a doe that had but one eye 
used to graze near the sea; and in order to be safe, she 
kept her blind eye toward the water, from which side she 
expected no danger, while with the good eye she watched 
the country. Some men, noticing this, took a boat and 
came upon her from the sea and shot her. With her 
dying breath, she said: 

"Oh! hard fate! that I should receive my death 
wound from that side whence I expected no harm, and 
be safe in the part where I looked for most danger." 



78 MOODY'S STORIES 

Lost Opportunities 

If a farmer neglects to plant in the springtime, he 
can never recover the lost opportunity; no more can 
you, if you neglect yours. Youth is a seed-time, and if 
it is allowed to pass without good seed being sown, 
weeds will spring up and choke the soil. It will take 
bitter toil to uproot them. 

An old divine said that when a good farmer sees a 
weed in his field he has it pulled up. If it is taken early 
enough, the blank is soon filled in, and the crop waves 
over the whole field. But if allowed to run too late, the 
bald patch remains. It would have been better if the 
weed had never been allowed to get root. 

Steer Clear 

A steamboat was stranded in the Mississippi River, 
and the captain could not get her off. Eventually a 
hard-looking fellow came on board, and said: 

"Captain, I understand you want a pilot to take you 
out of this difficulty ?" 

The captain said, "Are you a pilot?" 

"Well, they call me one." 

"Do you know where the snags and sand-bars are?" 

"No, sir." 

"Well, how do you expect to take me out of here if 
you don't know where the snags and sand-bars are?" 

"I know where they a.in't!" was the reply. 

Beware of temptations. "Lead us not into tempta- 
tion," our Lord taught us to pray; and again He said, 
"Watch and pray, lest ye enter into temptation." We 
are weak and sinful by nature, and it is a good deal bet- 
ter for us to pray for deliverance rather than to run into 
temptation and then pray for strength to resist. 



MOODY'S STORIES 79 

Looking for Revivals 

Men are anxious for a revival in business. There is a 
great revival in politics just now. In all departments 
of life you find that men are very anxious for a revival 
in the things that concern them most. 

If this is legitimate — and it is perfectly right in its 
place — should not every child of God be praying for and 
desiring a revival of godliness in the world at the present 
time? Do we not need a revival of downright honesty, 
of truthfulness, of uprightness, and of temperance? Are 
there not many who have become alienated from the 
Church of God and from the house of the Lord, who are 
forming an attachment to the saloon? Are not our sons 
being drawn away by hundreds and thousands, so that 
while you often find the churches empty, the liquor 
shops are crowded every Sabbath afternoon and evening? 
I am sure the saloon-keepers are glad if they can have 
a revival in their business; they do not object to sell 
more whisky and beer. Then surely every true Chris- 
tian ought to desire that men who are in danger of per- 
ishing eternally should be saved and rescued. 

Opportunity 

A sculptor once showed a visitor his studio. It was 
full of statues of gods. One was very curious. The 
face was concealed by being covered with hair, and there 
were wings on each foot. 

''What is his name?" said the visitor. 

"Opportunity," was the reply. 

44 Why is his face hidden?" 

"Because men seldom know him when he comes to 
them." 

"Why has he wings on his feet?" 



So MOODY'S STORIES 

' 'Because he is soon gone, and once gone can never 
be overtaken. " 

It becomes us, then, to make the most of the oppor- 
tunities God has given us. 

The Usual Way 

I used at one time to read so many chapters of the 
Bible a day, and if I did not get through my usual 
quantity, I thought I was getting cold and backsliding. 
But, mind you, if a man had asked me two hours after- 
ward what I had read, I could not tell him ; I had for- 
gotten it nearly all. 

When I was a boy I used, among other things, to hoe 
corn on a farm; and I used to hoe it so badly, in order 
to get over so much ground, that at night I had to put 
down a stick in the ground, so as to know next morning 
where I had left off. 

That was somewhat in the same fashion as running 
through so many chapters every day. A man will say, 
"Wife, did I read that chapter?" 

"Well," says she, "I don't remember." 

And neither of them can recollect. And perhaps he 
reads the same chapter over and over again; and they 
call that "studying the Bible." ,1 do not think there is 
a book in the world we neglect so much as the Bible. 

Getting On Splendidly 

One man said to another, some time ago: "How are 
you getting on at your church?" 

"Oh, splendid." 

"Many conversions?" 

"Well — well, on that side we are not getting on so 
well. But," he said, "we have rented all our pews and 



MOODY'S STORIES Si 

are able to pay all our running expenses. We are get- 
ting on splendidly. " 

That is what the godless call 4 'getting on splendidly. " 
They rent the pews, pay the minister, and meet all the 
running expenses. 

A man was being shown through one of the cathedrals 
of Europe; he had come in from the country. One of 
the men belonging to the cathedral was showing him 
around, when he inquired: 

"Do you have may conversions here?" 

"Many what?" 

"Many conversions here?" 

"Ah, man, this is not a Wesleyan chapel." 

The idea of there being conversions there! And you 
can go into a good many churches in .this country and 
ask if they have many conversions there, and they would 
not know what it meant, they are so far away from the 
Lord; they are not looking for conversions, and don't 
expect them. 

A Hundred Years Hence 

Once, as I was walking down the street, I heard 
some people laughing and talking aloud. One of them 
said: 

"Well, there will be no difference; it will be all the 
same a hundred years hence." 

The thought flashed across my mind, "Will there be 
no difference? Where will you be a hundred years 
hence?" 

Young man, just ask yourself the question, "Where 
shall I be?" Some of you who are getting on in years 
may be in eternity ten years hence. Where will you be, 
on the left or the right hand of God? I cannot tell your 



82 MOODY'S STORIES 

feelings, but I can my own. I ask you, " Where will 
you spend eternity? Where will you be a hundred years 
hence?" 

A Free Gift 

Remember, salvation is a free gift, and it is a free 
gxitfor us. Can you buy it? It is a free gift, presented 
to 4t whosoever" will accept it. 

Suppose I were to say, I will give this Bible to "who- 
soever" will take it; what have you got to do? Why, 
nothing but take it. But a man comes forward, and says: 

"I'd like that Bible very much." 

"Well, didn't I say 'whosoever' will can have it?" 

"Yes; but I'd like to have you mention my name. " 

"Well, here it is." 

Still he keeps eyeing the Bible, and saying, "I'd like 
to have that Bible; but I'd like to give you something for 
it. I don't like to take it for nothing." 

"But I am not here to sell Bibles; take it, if you 
want it." 

"Well, I want it; but I'd like to give you something 
for it. Let me give you a cent for it; though, to be 
sure, it's worth about five dollars." 

Suppose I accept the cent; the man takes up the Bible 
and marches away home with it. 

His wife asks, "Where did you get that Bible?" 

"Oh, I bought it." 

Mark the point; when he gave the penny, it ceased to 
be a gift. So with salvation. If you were to pay ever 
so little, it would not be a gift. 

What Seed Are You Sowing ? 

Suppose I meet a man who is sowing seed, and say, 
"Hello, stranger, what are you sowing?" 



MOODY'S STORIES S3 

"Seed." 

"What kind of seed?" 

"I don't know." 

"Don't you know whether it is good or bad?" 

"No; I can't tell. But it is seed — that is all I want 
to know, and I am sowing it." 

You would say that he was a first-class lunatic, 
wouldn't you? But he wouldn't be half so mad as the 
man who goes on sowing for time and eternity, and never 
asks himself what he is sowing or what the harvest will be. 

Father, what seed are you sowing in your family? 
Are you setting your children a good or a bad example? 
Do you spend your time at the saloon or the club, until 
you have become almost a stranger to them? or are you 
training them for God and righteousness? 

Bound Hand and Foot 

When I was speaking to five thousand children in 
Glasgow some years ago, I took a spool of thread and 
said to one of the largest boys: 

"Do you believe I can bind you with that thread?" 

He laughed at the idea. I wound the thread around 
him a few times, and he broke it with a single jerk. 
Then I wound the thread around and around, and by 
and by I said: 

"Now get free if you can." 

He couldn't move head or foot. If you are slave to 
some vile habit, you must either slay that habit, or it will 
slay you. 

Unity 

There is one thing I have noticed as I have traveled in 
different countries; I never yet have known the Spirit of 
God to work where the Lord's people were divided. 



84 MOODY'S STORIES 

Unity is one thing that we must have if we are to have 
the Holy Spirit of God to work in our midst. 

If a church is divided, the members should immedi- 
ately seek unity. Let the believers come together and 
get the difficulty out of the way. If the minister of a 
church cannot unite the people, if those that were dissat- 
isfied will not fall in, it would be better for that minister 
to "retire. I think there are a good many ministers in 
this country who are losing their time; they have lost, 
some of them, months and years; they have not seen any 
fruit, and they will not see any fruit, because they have a 
divided church. Such a church cannot grow in divine 
things. The Spirit of God doesn't work where there is 
division, and what we want to-day is the spirit of unity 
amongst God's children, so that the Lord may work. 

Get Inside ! 
You have looked at the windows of a grand church 
erected at the cost of many thousands of dollars. From 
the outside they did not seem very beautiful ; but get 
inside, when the rays of the sun are striking upon the 
stained glass, and you begin to understand what others 
have told you of their magnificence. So it is when you 
have come into personal contact with Christ. You find 
Him to be the very Savior and friend you need. You 
will see in Him what you have never seen before. 

Hunt For Something 

We must study the Bible thoroughly, and hunt it 
through, as it were, for some great truth. 

If a friend were to see me searching about a building, 
and w&re to come up, and say, '* Moody, what are you 
looking for? Have you lost something?" and I were to 
say, "No, I haven't lost anything; I'm not looking for 



MOODY'S STORIES 85 

anything particular," I fancy he would just let me go on 
by myself, and think me very foolish. But if I were to 
say, "Yes, I have lost a dollar," why, then, I might 
expect him to help me to find it. 

Read the Bible, my friends, as if you were seeking 
for something of value. It is a good deal better to take 
a single chapter, and spend a month on it, than to read 
the Bible at random for a month. 

4 * When Ye Think Not" 
McCheyne, the Scotch preacher, once said to some 
friends, "Do you think Christ will come to-night?" 
One after another they said, "I think not." 
When all had given this answer, he solemnly repeated 
this text, "The Son of Man cometh at an hour when ye 
think not. ' ' 

Home Piety 

If a Christian is unsound in patience or unsound in 
love, we take no notice of it; but let him be unsound in 
faith, and off goes his head. I do hate to see a minister 
or professing Christian mean and peevish to his wife, 
and yet be as polite as a dancing-master to other women. 
I tell you he is not fit to preach the Word of God. I 
don't want to have anything to do with him. The home 
was established before the church, and he sadly needs 
more home piety. 

Constant Watching 

The Persians had an annual festival when they slew 
all the serpents and venomous creatures they could find; 
but they allowed them to swarm as fast and freely as 
ever until the festival came round once more. It was 
poor policy. Sins, like serpents, breed quickly, and 
need to be constantly watched. 



86 MOODY'S STORIES 

The Wrong Physician 

I heard once of a man who went to England from the 
Continent, and brought letters with him to eminent phy- 
sicians from the Emperor. The letters said: 

4 'This man is a personal friend of mine, and we are 
afraid he is going to lose his reason. Do all you can for 
him." 

The doctor asked him if he had lost any dear friend 
in his own country, or any position of importance, or 
what it was that was weighing on his mind. 

The young man said: "No; but my father and grand- 
father and myself were brought up infidels, and for the 
last two or three years this thought has been haunting 
me, 'Where shall I spend eternity?' And the thought of 
it follows me day and night/' 

The doctor said, "You have come to the wrong phy- 
sician, but I will tell you of One who can cure you" ; and 
he told him of Christ, and read to him the fifty-third 
chapter of Isaiah, "With His stripes we are healed." 

The young man said, "Doctor, do you believe that?" 

The doctor told him he did, and prayed and wrestled 
with him, and at last the clear light of Calvary shone on 
his soul. He had settled the question in his own mind 
at last, where he would spend eternity. 

I ask you, sinner, to settle it now. It is for you to 
decide. Shall it be with the saints and martyrs and 
prophets, or in the dark caverns of hell, amidst black- 
ness and darkness forever? Make haste to be wise; for 
"how shall we escape if we neglect so great salvation?" 

Seeking the Lost 
I remember, when we were in London, they found one 
old woman who was eighty-five years old, and not a 



MOODY'S STORIES 87 

Christian. After the worker had prayed, she made a 
prayer herself: 

"O Lord, I thank Thee for going out of Thy way to 
find me." 

He is all the time going out of His way to find the lost. 

He Got Time To Think 

I was once preaching on the text, "Be not deceived; 
God is not mocked; for whatsoever a man soweth, that 
shall he also reap. " No sooner had I read it than a man 
stood right up in the audience and said: 

"I don't believe it." 

I said: "My friend, that doesn't change the fact. 
Truth is truth, whether you believe it or not; and a lie 
is a lie, whether you believe it or not." 

He didn't want to believe it. When the meeting 
broke up, an officer was at the door to arrest him. He 
was tried and sent to the penitentiary for twelve months 
for stealing. I really believe that when he got into his 
cell, he believed that he had to reap what he sowed. 

The Motherless Child 

Once I heard of a little sick child, whose mother was 
seriously ill; and so, in order that she might have quiet, 
and that the sick child might be no trouble to her, the 
little one was taken away to a friend's house, and placed 
in. charge of a kind lady for a time. The mother grew 
worse, and at length died. The father said: 

"We'll not trouble the child about it; she is too 
young to remember her mother; just let her remain 
where she is until the funeral is over." 

This was done, and in a few days the little girl was 
brought back to the house. No mention was made of 
her mother, or of what had occurred ; but no sooner was 



88 MOODY'S STORIES 

she taken to the house than she ran first into one room, 
then into another, into the parlor, the dining-room, and 
all over the house, and then away into a little room 
where her mother used to go to pray alone. 

"Where is mother?" she cried. "I want mother!" 

And when they were compelled to tell her what had 
happened, she cried out: 

"Take me away, take me away; I don't want to be 
here without mother." 

It was the mother made it home to her. And so it 
is in heaven. It is not so much the white robes, the 
golden crown, or the harps of gold, but it is the society 
we shall meet there. Who, then, are there? What com- 
pany shall we have when we get there? Jesus is there, 
the Holy Father is there, the Spirit is there — our Father, 
our elder Brother, our Comforter. 

Converted the Regular Way 

I never yet knew a man converted just in the time 
and manner he expected to be. I have heard people 
say, "Well, if ever I am converted, it won't be in a 
Methodist church; you won't catch me there." I never 
knew a man say that but, at last, if converted at all, it 
was in a Methodist church. 

In Scotland a man was converted at one of our meet- 
ings — an employer. He was very anxious that all his 
employes should be reached, and he used to send them 
one by one to the meetings. But there was one em- 
ploye that wouldn't come. We are all more or less 
troubled with stubbornness; and the moment this man 
found that his employer wanted him to go to the meet- 
ings, he made up his mind he wouldn't go. If he was 
going to be converted, he said, he was going to be con- 



MOODY'S STORIES 89 

verted by some ordained minister; he was not going to 
any meeting that was conducted by unordained Ameri- 
cans. He believed in conversion, but he was going to be 
converted the regular way. He believed in the regular 
Presbyterian Church of Scotland, and that was the 
place for him to be converted. 

The employer tried every way he could to get him to 
attend the meetings, but he wouldn't come. 

After we left that town and went away up to Inver- 
ness, the employer had some business up there, and he 
sent this employe to attend to it, in the hope that he 
would attend some of our meetings. 

One night, as I was preaching on the bank of a river, 
I happened to take for my text the words of Naaman: 
"I thought; I thought." I was trying to take men's 
thoughts up and to show the difference between their 
thoughts and God's thoughts. This man happened to be 
walking along the bank of the river. He saw a great 
crowd, and heard some one talking, and he wondered to 
himself what that man was talking about. He didn't 
know who was there, so he drew up to the crowd, and 
listened. He heard the sermon, and became convicted 
and converted right there. Then he inquired who was 
the preacher, and he found out it was the very man that 
he said he would not hear — the man he disliked. The 
very man he had been talking against was the very man 
God used to convert him. 

Crazy from Sin 

I was once preaching in Chicago, and a woman who 

was nearly out of her mind came to me. You know 

there are some people who mock at religious meetings, 

and say that religion drives people mad. It is sin that 



90 MOODY'S STORIES 

drives people mad. It is the want of Christ that sinks 
people into despair. 

This was the woman's story: 

She had a family of children. One of her neighbors 
had died, and her husband had brought home a little 
child. She said, "I don't want the child," but her hus- 
band said, "You must take it and look after it. " She 
said she had enough to do with her own, and she told 
her husband to take that child away. But he would not. 
She confessed that she tried to starve the child; but it 
lingered on. One night it cried all night; I suppose it 
wanted food. At last she took the clothes and threw 
them over the child and smothered it. No one saw her; 
no one knew anything about it. The child was buried. 
Years had passed away, and she said: 

"I hear the voice of that child day and night. It has 
driven me nearly mad." 

No one saw the act; but God saw it, and this retribu- 
tion followed it. History is full of these things. You 
need not go to the Bible to find it out. 

Don't Swearl 

I was greatly amazed not long ago, in talking to a 
man who thought he was a Christian, to find that once 
in a while, when he got angry, he would swear. I said: 
"My friend, I don't see how you can tear down with 
one band what you are trying to build up with the other. 
I don't see how you can profess to be a child of God and 
let those words come out of your lips." 

He replied: "Mr. Moody, if you knew me, you would 
understand. I have a very quick temper. I inherited 
it from my father and mother, and it is uncontrollable; 
but my swearing comes only from the lips." 



MOODY'S STORIES 



When God said, 4 'I will not hold him guiltless that 
takes My name in vain," He meant what He said, and 
I don't believe any one can be a true child of God who 
takes the name of God in vain. 

The True Sheep Knows 

I tell you the true sheep know a true shepherd. I 
got up in Scotland once and quoted a passage of Scrip- 
ture a little different from what it was in the Bible, and 
an old woman crept up and said : 

44 Mr. Moody, you said .*' 

I might make forty misquotations in an ordinary 
audience, and no one would tell me about them. Like 
two lawyers: one said in court that the other didn't know 
the Lord's Prayer. The other said he did: 

44 Now I lay me down to sleep." 

44 Well," the first said, 44 I give it up. I did not think 
you knew it." 

Didn't either one of them know it, you see. 

The Father Knew Best 

Dr. Arnot, one of the greatest Scotch divines, was in 
this country before he died. His mother died when he 
was a little boy only three weeks old, and there was a 
large family of Arnots. I suppose they missed the ten- 
derness and love of the mother. They got the impres- 
sion that their father was very stern and rigid, and that 
he had a great many laws and rules. 

One rule was, that the children should never climb 
trees. When the neighbors found out that the Arnot 
children could not climb trees, they began to tell them 
about the wonderful things they could see from the tops 
of the trees. Well, tell a boy of twelve years that he 
mustn't climb a tree, and he will get up that tree some 



MOODY'S STORIES 



way. And so the Arnot children were all the time teas- 
ing their father to let them climb the tree; but the old 
sire said: 

"No." 

One day he was busy reading his paper, and the boys 
said: 

"Father is reading his paper. Let's slip down into 
the lot and climb a tree." 

One of the little fellows stood on the top of the fence 
to see that father did not catch them. When his 
brother got up on the first branch, he said: 

"What do you see?" 

"Why! I don't see anything." 

"Then go higher; you haven't got high enough.' 

So up he went higher, and again the little boy asked: 

"Well, what do you see now?" 

"I don't see anything." 

"You aren't high enough; go higher." 

And the little fellow went up as high as he could go, 
but he slipped, and down he came, and E broke his leg. 
Willie said he tried to get him into the house, but he 
couldn't do it. He had to tell his father all about it. 
He said he was scared nearly out of his wits. He thought 
his father would be very angry. But his father just 
threw aside the paper, and started for the lot. When 
he got there, he picked the boy up in his arms, and 
brought him up to the house. Then he sent for the doc- 
tor. And Willie said he got a new view of that father. 
He found out the reason why that father was so stern. 
He said the moment that boy got hurt, no mother could 
have been more loving and gentle. 

My dear friends, there is not one commandment that 
has been given us which has not been for our highest 



MOODY'S STORIES 93 

and best interest. There isn't a commandment that 
hasn't come from the loving heart of God, and what He 
wants is to have us give up that which is going to mar 
our happiness in this life, and in the life to come. * 

"Help Yourself !" 

When I was out on the Pacific coast, in California, 
some years ago, I was the guest of a man that had a 
large vineyard and a large orchard. One day he said to 
me: 

"Moody, while you are my guest I want you to make 
yourself perfectly at home, and if there is anything in 
the orchard or in the vineyard you would like, help 
yourself. " 

Well, when I wanted an orange, I did not go to an 
orange tree and pray the oranges to fall into my pocket ; 
but I walked up to a tree, reached out my hand, and 
took the oranges. He said "Take," and I took. 

God says, "There is my Son; take Him as your 
Saviour. The wages of sin is death; but the gift of God 
is eternal life." 

The Rich Husband 

There was a shop-girl in Chicago, a few years ago. 
One day she could not have bought five dollars' worth of 
anything; the next day she could go and buy a thousand 
dollar's worth of whatever she wanted. 

What made the difference? 

Why, she had married a rich husband ; that was all. 
She had received him, and of course all he had became 
hers. And so we can have all, if we only receive Christ. 

Settle It Now ! 
Some years ago, in one of the mining districts of 
England, a young man attended one of our meetings and 



94 MOODY'S STORIES 

refused to go from the place till he had found peace in 
the Savior. The next day he went down into the pit, 
and the coal fell in upon him. When they took him out, 
he was broken and mangled, and had only two or three 
minutes of life left in him. His friends gathered about 
him, saw his lips moving, and, bending down to catch 
his words, heard him say: 

"It was a good thing I settled it last night." 
Settle it now, my friends, once for all. Begin now to 
confess your sins, and pray the Lord to remember you. 
He will make you an heir of His kingdom, if you will 
accept the gift of salvation. 

The True Source of Joy 

God doesn't ask us to rejoice over nothing; He gives 
us ground for our joy. What would you think of a man 
who seemed very happy to-day and full of joy, and 
couldn't tell you what made him so? Suppose I should 
meet a man on the street, and he was so full of joy that 
he should get hold of both my hands and say: 

"Bless the Lord, I am so full of joy!" 

"What makes you so full of joy?" 

"Well, I don't know."' 

"You don't know!" 

"No, I don't; but I am so joyful that I just want to 
get out of the flesh." 

"What makes you feel so joyful?" - 

"Well, I don't know." 

Would we not think such a person unreasonable? But 
there are a great many people who want to feel that 
they are Christians before they are Christians; they want 
the Christian's experience before they become Chris- 
tians; they want to have the joy of the Lord before 



MOODY'S STORIES 95 

they receive Jesus Christ. But this is not the Gospel 

order. He brings joy when He comes, and we cannot 

have joy apart from Him. He is the author of it, and 
we find our joy in Him. 

The Meanest Kind of Murderers 

When I was in England in 1892, I met a gentleman 
who claimed that they were ahead of us in the respect 
they had for the law. "We hang our murderers,'' he 
said, "but there isn't one out of twenty in your country 
that is hung." 

I said, "You are greatly mistaken, for they walk 
about these two countries unhung." 

"What do you mean?" 

"I will tell you what I mean," I said; "the man that 
comes into my house and runs a dagger into my heart 
for my money is a prince compared with a son that takes 
five years to kill me and the wife of my bosom. A 
young man who comes home night after night drunk, and 
when his mother remonstrates, curses her gray hairs, 
and kills her by inches, is the blackest kind of a mur- 
derer. " 

Where your Treasure Is 
You can soon tell where a man's treasure is by his 
talk. If it is in heaven, he will not be long with you 
before he's talking about heaven; his heart is there, and 
so his speech isn't long in running there, too. If his 
heart is in money, he will soon have you deep in talk 
about mines, speculation, stocks, bank rate, and so on. 
If his heart is in lands, it won't be long before he's 
talking about real estate, improvements, houses, and so 
on. Always the same, wherever a man's heart is, there 
his tongue will be sure to go. 



96 MOODY'S STORIES 

Some one in England said, if you see a man's goods 
and furniture come down by the luggage train, you're 
pretty sure he'll be down by the next passenger train; 
he won't be long after; he'll follow his goods. And so 
it is with heaven; if your treasure is on before you, 
you'll be wanting to follow it; you'll be glad to be on 
the road thither as soon as possible. 

Why his Life was Spared 

Two Americans who were crossing the Atlantic met 
on Sunday night to sing hymns in the cabin. As they 
sang the hymn, "Jesus, Lover of my Soul," one of them 
heard an exceedingly rich and beautiful voice behind 
him. He looked around, and although he did not know 
the face he thought that he recognized the voice. So 
when the music ceased he turned around and asked the 
man if he had not been in the Civil War. The man 
replied that he had been a Confederate soldier. 

"Were you at such a place on such a night?" asked 
the first. 

"Yes," he said, "and a curious thing happened that 
night; this hymn recalled it to my mind. I was on 
sentry duty on the edge of a wood. It was a dark night 
and very cold, and I was a little frightened because the 
enemy were supposed to be very near at hand. I felt 
very homesick and miserable, and about midnight, when 
everything was very still, I was beginning to feel very 
weary and thought that I would comfort myself by pray- 
ing and singing a hymn. I remember singing this 
hymn — 

'All my trust on Thee is stayed, 

All my help from Thee I bring. 
Cover my defenceless head 
With the shadow of Thy wing.' 



MOODY'S STORIES 97 

"After I had sung those words a strange peace came 
down upon me, and through the long night I remember 
having felt no more fear." 

"Now," said the other man, "listen to my story. I 
was a Union soldier, and was in the wood that night with 
a party of scouts. I saw you standing up, although I 
didn't see your face, and my men had their rifles 
focused upon you waiting the word to fire,- but when 
you sang out — 

1 Cover my defenceless head 

With the shadow of Thy wing.' 

I said, 'Boys, put down your rifles; we will go home.' I 
couldn't kill you after that.' 

The Sinner's Heart 

When I was in Dublin some years ago I got up to go 
to an early meeting, and found the servants had not 
opened the front door; so I pulled back a 'bolt, but I 
could not get the door open. Then I turned a key, but 
the door would not open. Then I found there was 
another bolt at the top and another bolt at the bottom. 
Still the door would not open. Then I found there was 
a bar, and then I found a night-lock. In all I found 
five or six different fastenings. 

I am afraid that door represents every sinner's heart. 
The door of his heart is double-locked, double-bolted, 
and double-barred. Oh, my friends, pull back the bolts, 
and let the King of glory in ! 

Nothing Small 
There are a great many different ways of doing good. 
A lady once visited a hospital, and noticed with what 
pleasure the patients would smell and look at the flowers 
sent to them. Said she: 



98 MOODY'S STORIES 

4 'If I had known that a bunch of flowers would do so 
much good, I would have sent some from home. " 

„ As soon as she got home, she sent some flowers out of 
her garden. It was a little thing — a bouquet of flowers. 
It might be a very insignificant work — very small ; but if 
it was done in the right spirit, God accepted it. A cup 
of water given in His name is accepted as given to Him- 
self. Nothing that is done for God is small. 

An Anecdote about Tennyson 

It is said that Tennyson once asked an old Christian 
woman if there was any news. 

"Why, Mr. Tennyson," she replied, "there's only 
one piece of news that I know, and that is — Christ died 
for all men." 

"That is old news, and good news, and new news," 
Tennyson responded. 

On Satan's Ground 

There is a legend that the Apostle John was much 
distressed over the fall of a young convert. He sum- 
moned Satan before him, and reproached him for ruining 
so good a youth. 

"I found your good youth on my ground," said Satan; 
"so I took him." 

The only safe course is to avoid temptation altogether. 

Two Bidding for the Soul 

There are two who are bidding for your soul and 
mine — the Lord Jesus and Satan. 

Satan bids, and he offers that which he cannot give. 
He is a liar, and has been from the foundation of the 
world. I pity the man who is living on the promises of 
the devil. He will never satisfy. But the Lord Jesus is 



MOODY'S STORIES 99 

able to give all that He offers. And what does He offer? 
He offers peace and joy and comfort that the world 
knows not of. He offers eternal life in the kingdom of 
God. He offers a seat in His mansions. We are to sit 
with Him upon His throne. 

May God help you to make a right choice! Make 
up your mind you will not rest until the great question 
of eternity is settled, until you have crossed the border- 
land, and pressed into the kingdom of God. 

Tried and Proven 
I knew an old lady that marked in the margin of her 
Bible, opposite the promises, T. P. ; T. for "tried," and 
P. for "proven." What we want is to try the Bible and 
see if it is not true. 

The Prairie Fire 

Out in the Western country, in the autumn, when men 
go hunting, and there has not been any rain for months, 
sometimes the prairie grass catches fire, and there comes 
up a very strong wind, and the flames just roll along 
twenty feet high, and travel at the rate of thirty or 
forty miles an hour, consuming man and beast. When 
the hunters see it coming, what do they do? They know 
they cannot run as fast as the fire can run. Not the 
fleetest horse can escape. They just take a match and 
light the grass around them, and let the flames sweep, 
and then they get into the burnt district and stand safe. 
They hear the flames roar as they come along, they see 
death coming toward them, but they do not fear, they 
do not tremble, because the fire has swept over the place 
where they are, and there is no danger There is noth- 
ing for the fire to burn. 

There is one mountain that the wrath of God has 

L.ofC. 



IOO MOODY'S STORIES 

swept over — that is, Mount Calvary; and the fire spent 
its fury upon the bosom of the Son of God. Take your 
stand by the cross, and you will be safe for time and 
eternity. 

Perfect Order 

A good many people are afraid of doing anything out 
of the regular lines — of doing anything out of order. 
Now, you will find perfect order in a cemetery. You 
will find perfect order where there is death. Where 
there is life you will find something out of order. 

Is your Soul Insured? 

"Pa," said a little boy as he climbed to his father's 
knee, and looked into his face as earnestly as if he under- 
stood the importance of the subject, "pa, is your soul 
insured?" 

"What are you thinking about, my son?" replied the 
agitated father. "Why do you ask that question?" 

"Why, pa, I heard Uncle George say that you had 
your house insured, and your life insured; but he didn't 
believe you had thought of your soul, and he was afraid 
you would lose it; won't you get it insured right away?" 

The father leaned his head on his hand, and was 
silent. He owned broad acres of land that were covered 
with a bountiful produce; his barns were even now filled 
with plenty, his buildings were all well covered by insur- 
ance ; and as if that would not suffice for the maintenance 
of his wife and only child in case of his decease, he had, 
the day before, taken a life-policy for a large amount; 
yet not one thought had he given to his own immortal 
soul. On that which was to waste away and become 
part and parcel of its native dust he had spared no 
pains; but for that which was to live on and on through 






MOODY'S STORIES IOt 

the long ages of eternity he had made no provision. 
"What shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world 
and lose his own soul?" 

Memory 

I have been twice at the point of death. I was 
drowning once, and just as I was going down the third 
time I was rescued. In the twinkling of an eye my 
whole life came flashing across my mind. I cannot tell 
you how it was. I cannot tell you how a whole life can 
be crowded into a second of time; but everything I had 
done from my earliest childhood — it all came flashing 
across my mind. And I believe that when God touches 
the secret spring of memory, every one of our sins will 
come back, and if they have not been blotted out by the 
blood of the Lord Jesus Christ, they will haunt us as 
eternal ages roll on. 

We talk about our forgetting, but we cannot forget if 
God says "Remember.' ' We talk about the recording 
angel keeping the record of our life. I have an idea 
that when we get to heaven, or into eternity, we will find 
that recording angel has been ourselves. God will make 
everyone of us keep our own record; these memories 
will keep the record, and when God shall say, l 'Son, 
remember," it will all flash across our mind. It won't 
be God who will condemn us; it will be ourselves. W T e 
shall condemn ourselves, and we shall stand before God 
speechless. 

There is a man in prison. He has been there five 
years. Ask that man what makes the prison so terrible 
to him. Ask him if it is the walls and the iron gates — 
ask him if it is his hard work, and he will tell you no; he 
will tell you what makes the prison so terrible to him is 



102 MOODY'S STORIES 

memory; and I have an idea that if we got down into the 
lost world, we would find that is what makes hell so ter- 
rible — the remembrance that they once heard the Gospel, 
that they once had Christ offered to them, that they 
once had the privilege of being saved, but they made 
light of the [Gospel, they neglected salvation, they 
rejected the offer of mercy, and now if they would 
accept it they could not. 

Balaam's Ass 

A friend of mine was going back to Scotland, and he 
heard a couple of these little modern philosophers dis- 
cussing the Bible. One said: "The Bible says that 
Balaam's ass spoke. Now, I am a scientific man, and I 
have taken the pains to examine an ass's mouth, and it 
is so formed that it couldn't speak." 

He was going to toss the whole Bible over because 
Balaam's ass couldn't speak. 

My friend said he stood it just as long as he could, 
and finally he said: 

"Ah, man, you make an ass, and I will make him 
speak." 

The idea that the God who made the ass couldn't 
speak through his mouth! Did you ever hear such 
stuff? And yet this was one of your modern philoso- 
phers! 

The Border Apple-Tree 

If you want real peace and rest to your soul, keep sep- 
arate from the world. 

I remember when I was a boy in Northfield, right 
near the old red schoolhouse there was an apple-tree 
that bore the earliest apples of any tree in town. They 
had a law in that town that fruit on a tree overhanging 



MOODY'S STORIES 103 

the street belonged to the public, and any fruit on the 
other side of the fence belonged to the property-holders. 
Half that apple-tree was over in the street, and it got 
more old brooms and brickbats and handles than any 
other tree in town. We boys used to watch to see when 
an apple was getting red. I never got a ripe apple from 
that tree in my life, and I don't believe any one else ever 
did. You never went by that tree that you didn't see a 
lot of broom-handles and clubs up there. 

Now, take a lot of Christians who want to live right 
on the line, with one foot in the world and one foot in 
the church. They get more clubs than any one else. 
The world clubs them. They say, "I don't believe in 
that man's religion." And the church clubs them. 
They get clubs both sides. It is a good deal better to 
keep just as far from the line as you can if you want 
power. 

Bad Company 

A friend of mine said he had a beautiful canary bird; 
he thought it was the sweetest singer they had ever had. 
Spring came on, and he felt it was a pity to keep the 
poor bird in the house, so he put it under a tree right in 
front of his house. He said before he knew it a lot of 
these little English sparrows got under that tree (and 
you know they cannot sing any more than I can, and I 
don't know one note from another), and went, "Chirp, 
chirp, chirp." Before he knew it, that little canary had 
lost all its sweet notes. It had got into bad company. 

After he found out that he had made a mistake, he 
took the bird into the house, but it kept up that "Chirp, 
chirp, chirp." He bought another bird, but the canary 
nearly ruined it. He said that bird never got back its 
sweet notes. 



104 MOODY'S STORIES 

Now, don't you know lots of Christian people who 
had a fine testimony several years ago, but they have 
lost their witness, and all they do now is talk, talk, talk, 
talk? Why? Because they are out of communion with 
God, and have lost their witness. 

" Hitch On" and "Cut Behind" 
Some one tells of an incident that happened in a 
New England town the other day. All the boys were 
sleighing. A big sleigh — we call it a "pung" up there — 
was being driven through the streets by an old man 
who looked like Santa Claus. He was calling out to 
the small boys to hitch on, for a pung is like a 'bus, it 
always holds one more. 

There were already about twenty rollicking boys 
hitched on, when one little fellow dropped off behind. 
He tried, but couldn't catch up again, and pretty soon 
he began to look out for another chance for a ride. A 
man's sleigh was standing near by, and the boy began 
to eye the man. When the man in the sleigh started off, 
the little fellow hitched on behind, and the man grabbed 
his whip and struck him directly in the eye. It looked as 
if the eye had been put out, but it wasn't. 

Now, that's the way we go through this world. Some 
say, "Hitch on, hitch on"; others, "Cut behind, cut 
behind." The hitch-on people fill the churches, and the 
cut-behind ones empty them. 

Known by Name 
A friend of mine was in Syria, and he found a shepherd 
that kept up the old custom of naming his sheep. My 
friend said he wouldn't believe that the sheep knew him 
when he called them by name. So he said to the shep- 
herd: 



MOODY'S STORIES 105 

"I wish you would just call one or two." 

The shepherd said, 4l Carl." 

The sheep stopped eating and looked up. 

The shepherd called out, u Come here." 

The sheep came, and stood looking up into his face. 

He called another, and another, and there they stood 
looking up at the shepherd. 

"How can you tell them apart?" 

"Oh, there are no two alike. See, that sheep toes in 
a little; this sheep is a little bit squint-eyed; that sheep 
has a black spot on its nose." 

My friend found that he knew every one of his sheep 
by their failings. He didn't have a perfect one in his 
flock. 

I suppose that is the way the Lord knows you and me. 
There is a man that is covetous; he wants to grasp 
the whole world. He wants a shepherd to keep down 
that spirit. There is a woman down there who has an 
awful tongue; she keeps the whole neighborhood stirred 
up. There is a woman over there who is deceitful, ter- 
ribly so. She needs the care of a shepherd to keep her 
from deceit, for she will ruin all her children; they will 
all turn out just like their mother. There is a father 
over there who wouldn't swear for all the world before 
his children, but sometimes he gets provoked in his busi- 
ness and swears before he knows it. Doesn't he need a 
shepherd's care? I would like to know if there is a man 
or woman on earth who doesn't need the care of a shep- 
herd. Haven't we all got failings? If you really want 
to know what your failings are, you can find some one 
who can point them out. God would never have sent 
Christ into the world if we didn't need His care. We 
are as weak and foolish as sheep. 



106 MOODY'S STORIES 

The Right Time for Action 

A man was always telling his servant that he was 
going to do a great thing for him. "I am going to 
remember you in my will. v 

Sambo got his expectations up very high. When the 
man came to die, it was found that all he had willed 
Sambo was to be buried in the family lot. That was 
the big thing, you know. Sambo said he wished he had 
given him ten dollars, and let the lot go. 

If you want to show kindness to a person, show it to 
him while you are living. I heard a man say that he 
didn't want people to throw bouquets to him after he 
was dead, and say, "There, smell them. " 

Now, this is the time for action. I have got so tired 
and sick of this splitting hairs over theology. Man, let 
us go out and get the fallen up. Lift them up toward 
God and heaven. We want a practical kind of Chris- 
tianity. 

Criticising the Sermon 

Very often a man will hear a hundred good things in 
a sermon, but there may be one thing that strikes him 
as a little out of place, and he will go home and sit 
down at the table and talk right out before his children 
and magnify that one wrong thing, and not say a word 
about the hundred good things that were said. That is 
what people do who criticise. 

A Reminiscence 
I remember blaming my mother for sending me to 
church on the Sabbath. On one occasion the preacher 
had to send some one into the gallery to wake me up. 
I thought it was hard to have to work in the field all the 
week, and then be obliged to go to church and he«r a 



MOODY'S STORIES 107 

sermon I didn't understand. I thought I wouldn't go to 
church any more when I got away from home; but I had 
got so in the habit of going that I couldn't stay away. 
After one or two Sabbaths, back again to the house of 
God I went. There I first found Christ, and I have 
often said since : 

"Mother, I thank you for making me go to the house 
of God when I didn't want to go." 

Transplanting the Lily 
"It is easy to go when the time comes. There are no 
ropes thrown out to pull us ashore; there are no ladders 
let down to pull us up. Christ comes and takes us by 
the hand, and says: 

" 'You have had enough of this. Come up higher!' 

"Do you hurt a lily when you pluck it? Is there any 

rudeness when Jesus touches the cheek, and the red 

rose of health whitens into the lily of immortal purity 

and gladness?' ' — Talmage. 

Election 

How many men fold their arms and say: 

"If I am one of the elect, I will be saved, and if 1 
ain't, I won't. No use of your bothering about it.' ' 

Why don't some of these merchants say: "If God is 
going to make me a successful merchant in Chicago, I 
will be one whether I like it or not, and if He isn't 
I won't." 

If you are sick, and a doctor prescribes for you, don't 
take the medicine — throw it out the door. It does not 
matter, for if God has decreed you are going to die, you 
will; if He hasn't, you will get better. If you use that 
argument you may as well not walk home from this 



108 MOODY'S STORIES 

tabernacle. If God has said you'll get home, you'll get 
home — you'll fly through the air. 

I have an idea that the Lord Jesus saw how men were 
going to stumble over this doctrine, so after He had 
been thirty or forty years in heaven He came down and 
spoke to John. One Lord's day in Patmos, He said to 
him: 

11 Write these things to the churches." 

John kept on writing. His pen flew very fast. And 

then the Lord, w 7 hen it was nearly finished, said, "John, 

before you close the book, put in one more invitation. 

'The Spirit and the bride say, Come. And let him that 

heareth say, Come. And let him that is athirst, come. 

And whosoever will, let him take the water of life 

freely.' " 

The Mysteries of the Bible 

Dr. Talmage tells the story that one day while he was 
bothering his theological professor with questions about 
the mysteries of the Bible, the latter turned on him 
and said: 

"Mr. Talmage, you will have to let God know some 
things you don't." 

The Little Lone One 

I sometimes think if an angel were to wing its way to 
heaven, and tell them that there was one little child here 
on earth — it might be a shoeless, coatless street Arab — 
with no one to lead it to the cross of Christ, and if God 
were to call the angels round His throne and ask them 
to go and spend — aye, fifty years, in teaching that child, 
there would not be an angel in heaven but would respond 
gladly to the appeal. We should see even Gabriel say- 
ing, "Let me go and win that soul to Christ." We 
should see Paul buckling on his old armor again, and 



MOODY'S STORIES 109 

saying, "Let me go back again to earth, that I may have 
the joy of leading that little one to his Saviour." 

Ah! we need rousing; there is too much apathy 
amongst professing Christians. Let us pray God that 
He may send His Holy Spirit to inspire us with fresh 
energy and zeal to do His work. 

Doubting Castle 
It is the privilege of every child of God to know that 
he is saved, and yet I find ever so many people living in 
Doubting Castle. Why, it is salvation by doubts nowa- 
days, instead of by faith; there are so few that dare to 
say, "I know that my Redeemer liveth; I know in whom 
I have believed." We find most Christians nowadays 
shivering and trembling from head to foot — they do not 
know whether they are saved or not. 

Faith 

Bishop Ryle has very well likened faith to a root 
whose flower is assurance. To have the latter, he says, 
it is necessary that there must first be the hidden source 
of faith. 

Faith is the simplest and most universal experience in 
the world. Call it by whatever name you may, confi- 
dence, trust, or belief, it is inseparable from the human 
race. The first sign of a dawning intelligence in the 
mind is the exercise of the infant's faith toward those it 
knows, and its fear toward those it does not know. We 
cannot even remember when we first began to have faith. 

Confessing Christ at Home 

I was preaching in Chicago to a hall full of women 

one Sunday afternoon, and after the meeting was over a 

lady came to me and said she waated to talk to me. She 

said she would accept Christ, and after some conversa- 



no MOODY'S STORIES 

tion she went home. I looked for her for a whole week, 
but didn't see her until the following Sunday afternoon. 
She came and sat down right in front of me, and her 
face had such a sad expression. She seemed to have 
entered into the misery, instead of the joy, of the Lord. 

After the meeting was over I went to her and asked 
her what the trouble was. 

She said, "Oh, Mr. Moody, this has been the most 
miserable week of my life." 

I asked her if there was any one with whom she had 
had trouble and whom she could not forgive. 

She said, "No, not that I know of." 

"Well, did you tell your friends about having found 
the Saviour?' ' 

"Indeed I didn't. I have been all the week trying to 
keep it from them." 

"Well," I said, "that is the reason why you have no 
peace." 

She wanted to take the crown, but did not want the 
cross. My friends, you must go by the way of Calvary. 
If you ever get peace and joy you must get it at the foot 
of the cross. 

"Why," she said, "if I should go home and tell my 
infidel husband that I had found Christ, I don't know 
what he would do. I think he would turn me out." 

"Well," I said, "go out." 

She went away, promising that she would tell him, 
timid and pale, but she did not want another wretched 
week. She was bound to have peace. 

The next night I gave a lecture to men only, and in 
the hall there were eight thousand men and one solitary 
woman. When I got through and went into the inquiry 
meeting I found this lady with her husband. She intro- 



MOODY'S STORIES III 

duced him to me (he was a doctor and a very influential 
man), and said : 

u He wants to become a Christian." 

I took my Bible and told him all about Christ, 
and he accepted Him. I said to her after it was all 
over: 

"It turned out quite differently from what you 
expected, didn't it?" 

"Yes," she replied; "I was never so scared in my 
life. I expected he would do something dreadful, but it 
has turned out so well." 

She took God's way, and got the joy and peace she 
sought. 

How to Settle the Theater Question 

A lady came to me once and said, "Mr. Moody, I 
wish you would tell me how I can become a Christian." 
The tears were rolling down her cheeks, and she was in 
a very favorable mood. "But, " she said, "I don't want to 
be one of your kind." 

"Well," I asked, "have I got any peculiar kind? 
What is the matter with my Christianity?" 

"Well," she said, "my father was a doctor, and had 
a large practice, and he used to get so tired that he used 
to take us to the theater. There was a large family of 
girls, and we had tickets for the theaters three or four 
times a week. I suppose we were there a good deal 
oftener than we were in church. I am married to a < 
lawyer, and he has a large practice. He gets so tired 
that he takes us out to the theater," and she said, "I 
am far better acquainted with the theater and theater 
people than with the church and church people, and I 
don't want to give up the theater." 

"Well," I said, "did you ever hear me say anything 



H2 MOODY'S STORIES 

about theaters? There have been reporters here every 
day for all the different papers, and they are giving my 
semons verbatim in one paper. Have you ever seen 
anything in the sermons against the theaters?" 

She said, "No." 

"Well," I said, "I have seen you in the audience 
every afternoon for several weeks, and have you heard 
me say anything against theaters?" 

No, she.hadn't. 

"Well," I said, "what made you bring them up?" 

"Why, I supposed you didn't believe in theaters." 

"What made you think that?" 

"Why," she said, "do you ever go?" 

"No." 

"Why don't you go?" 

"Because I have got something better. I would 
sooner go out into the street and eat dirt than do some 
of the things I used to do before I became a Christian." 

"Why!" she said; "I don't understand." 

"Never mind," I said. "When Jesus Christ has the 
preeminence, you will understand it all. He didn't come 
down here and say we shouldn't go here and we shouldn't 
go there, and lay down a lot of rules, but He laid down 
great principles. Now, He says if you love Him you 
will take delight in pleasing Him," And I began^to 
preach Christ to her. The tears started again. She 
said: 

"I tell you, Mr. Moody } that sermon on the indwelling 
Christ yesterday afternoon just broke my heart. I ad- 
mire Him, and I want to be a Christian, but I don't 
want to give up the theaters." 

I said, "Please don't mention them again. I don't 
want to talk about theaters. I want to talk to you 



MOODY'S STORIES 1 13 

about Christ." So I took my Bible, and I read to her 
about Christ. 

But she said again, "Mr. Moody, can I go to the the- 
ater if I become a Christian?" 

4< Yes," I said, "you can go to the theater just as 
much as you like if you are a real, true Christian, and 
can go with His blessing." 

"Well," she said, "I am glad you are not so narrow- 
minded as some." 

She felt quite relieved to think that she could go to 
the theaters and be a Christian. But. I said: 

"If you can go to the theater for the glory of God, 
keep on going; only be sure that you go for the glory of 
God. If you are a Christian you will be glad to do 
whatever will please Him." 

I really think she became a Christian that day. The 
burden had gone, there was joy; but just as she was 
leaving me at the door she said: 

"I am not going to give up the theater." 

In a few days she came back to me and said: "Mr. 
Moody, I understand all about that theater business 
now. I went the other night. There was a large party 
at our house, and my husband wanted us to go, and we 
went; but when the curtain lifted everything looked so 
different. I said to my husband, 'This is no place for 
me; this is horrible. I am not going to stay here, I am 
going home.' He said, 'Don't make a fool of yourself. 
Every one has heard that you have been converted in 
the Moody ^meetings, and if you go out it will be all 
through fashionable society. I beg of you don't make 
a fool of yourself by getting up and going out.' But I 
said, *I have been making a fool of myself all of my life.' " 

Now, the theater hadn't changed, but she had got 



ii4 MOODY'S STORIES 

something better, and she was going to overcome the 
world. "They that are after the flesh do mind the 
things of the flesh ; but they that are after the Spirit, 
the things of the Spirit. " When Christ has the first 
place in your heart you are going to get victory. Just 
do whatever you know will please Him. The great 
objection I have to these things is that they get the 
mastery, and become a hindrance to spiritual growth. 

What a Sister Can Do 

I want to say to young ladies, perhaps you have a 
godless father or mother, or a skeptical brother, who is 
going down through drink, and perhaps there is no one 
who can reach them but you. How many times a godly, 
pure young lady has taken the light into some darkened 
home! Many a home might be lit up with the Gospel if 
the mothers and daughters would only speak the word. 

The last time Mr. Sankey and myself were in Edin- 
burgh, there were a father, two sisters, and a brother, 
who used every morning to take the morning paper and 
pick my sermon to pieces. They were indignant to 
think that the Edinburgh people should be carried away 
with such preaching. One day one of the sisters was 
going by the hall, and she thought she would drop in and 
see what class of people went there. She happened to 
take a seat by a godly lady, who said to her: 

"I hope you are interested in this work." 

She tossed her head and said: "Indeed I am not. 
I am disgusted with everything I have seen and heard." 

"Well," said the lady, "perhaps you came preju- 
diced." 

"Yes, and the meeting has not removed any of it, but 
has rather increased it." 



MOODY'S STORIES 115 

"I have received a great deal of good from them." 

i4 There is nothing here for me. I don't see how an 
intellectual person can be interested." 

To make a long story short, she got the young lady 
to promise to come back. When the meeting broke up, 
just a little of the prejudice had worn away. She prom- 
ised to come back again the next day, and then she 
attended three or four more meetings, and became quite 
interested. She said nothing to her family, until finally 
the burden became too heavy, and she told them. They 
laughed at her, and made her the butt of their ridicule. 

One day the two sisters were together, and the other 
said, "Now what have you got at those meetings that 
you didn't have in the first place?" 

"I have a peace that I never knew of before. I am 
at peace with God, myself, and all the world." Did you 
ever have a little war of your own with your neighbors, 
in your own famjjy? And she said: "I have self-control. 
You know, sister, if you had said half the mean things 
before I was converted that you have said since, I'would 
have been angry and answered back, but if you remem- 
ber correctly, I haven't answered once since I have been 
converted." 

The sister said, "You certainly have something that 
I have not." 

The other told her it was for her, too, and she brought 
the sister to the meetings, where she found peace. 

Like Martha and Mary, they had a brother, but he 
was a member of the University of Edinburgh. He be 
converted? He go to these meetings? It might do for 
women, but not for him! One night they came home 
and told him that a chum of his own, a member of the 
university, had stood up and confessed Christ, and when 



1 16 MOODY'S STORIES 

he sat down his brother got up and confessed; and so 
with the third one. 

When the young man heard it, he said: "Do you 
mean to tell me that he has been converted?' ' 

"Yes." 

"Well," he sard, "there must be something in it. " 

He put on his hat and coat, and went to see his friend 
Black. Black got him down to the meetings, and he 
was converted. 

We went through to Glasgow, and had not been there 
six weeks when news came that that young man had been 
stricken down, and had died. When he was dying he 
called his father to his bedside and said: 

"Wasn't it a good thing that my sisters went to those 
meetings? Won't you meet me in heaven, father?" 

"Yes, my son, I am so glad you are a Christian; that 
is the only comfort that J have in losing you. I will 
become a Christian, and will meet you again." 

I tell this to encourage some sister to go home and 
carry the message of salvation. It may be that your 
brother may be taken away in a few months. 

How one Man Treated Doubts 

A wild and prodigal young man, who was running a 
headlong career to ruin came into one of our meetings 
in Chicago. Whilst endeavoring to bring him to Christ, 
I quoted this verse to him: "Him that cometh unto me 
I will in no wise cast out." 

I asked him: "Do you believe Christ said that?" 

"I suppose He did." 

"Suppose He did! do you believe it?" 

"I hope so." 

"Hope so! do you believe it? You do your work, 



MOODY'S STORIES 1 17 

and the Lord will do His. Just come as you are, and 
throw yourself upon His bosom, and He will not cast 
you out." 

This man thought it was too simple and easy. 

At last light seemed to break in upon him, and he 
seemed to find comfort from it. It was past midnight 
before he got down on his knees, but down he went, and 
was converted. I said: 

"Now, don't think you are going to get out of the 
devil's territory without trouble. The devil will come 
to you to-morrow morning and say it was all feeling; 
that you only imagined you were accepted by God. 
When he does, don't fight him with your own opinions, 
but fight him with John vi. 37: 'Him that cometh to Me 
I will in nowise cast out. ' Let that be 'the sword of the 
Spirit.' " 

I don't believe that any man ever starts to go to 
Christ but the devil strives somehow or other to meet 
him and trip him up. And even after he has come to 
Christ, the devil tries to assail him with doubts, and 
make him believe there is something wrong in it. 

The struggle came sooner than I thought in this man's 
case. When he was on his way home the devil assailed 
him. He used this text, but the devil put this thought 
into his mind: 

"How do you know Christ ever said that after all? 
Perhaps the translators made a mistake." 

Into darkness he went again. He was in trouble till 
about two in the morning. At last he came to this con- 
clusion. Said he: 

"I will believe it anyway; and when I get to heaven, 
if it isn't true, I will just tell the Lord /didn't make 
the mistake — the translators made it." 



Il8 MOODY'S STORIES 

Use or Lose 

An Eastern allegory runs thus: A merchant, going 
abroad for a time, gave respectively to two of his friends 
two sacks of wheat each, to take care of against his 
return. Years passed. When he came back, he applied 
for them again. 

The first took him into a storehouse, and showed 
him his sacks; but they were mildewed and worthless. 

The other led him out into the open country, and 
pointed to field after field of waving wheat, the produce 
of the two sacks given him. 

Said the merchant: "You have been a faithful friend. 
Give me two sacks of that wheat ; the rest shall be thine. ' ' 

Let us put to good use the talents God has given us. 

The Anchored Boat 

I once heard of two men who were under the influ- 
ence of liquor. They came down at night to where their 
boat was tied. They wanted to return home, so they 
got in and began to row. They pulled away hard all 
night, wondering why they never got to the other side of 
the bay. When the gray dawn of morning broke, 
behold! they had never loosed the mooring line or raised 
the anchor! 

That^s just the way with many who are striving to 
enter the kingdom of heaven. They cannot believe, 
because they are tied to this world. Cut the cord! 
Confess and forsake your sins! Cut the cord! Set your- 
selves free from the clogging weight of earthly things, 
and you will soon rise heavenward. 

Not Much up There 
A friend of mine was once taken by an old man to 
see his riches. He took him to a splendid mansion, and 



MOODY'S STORIES 119 

said, "This is all mine." He pointed to a little town, 
"That is mine; it is called by my name." He pointed 
to a rolling prairie, "That is all mine; the sun never 
shone on a finer prairie than that, so fruitful and rich, 
and it's all mine." In another direction he showed him 
fertile farms extending for thirty miles, "These are all 
mine." He took him into his grand house, showed him 
his beautiful pictures, his costly gold plate, his jewels, 
and still he said, "These are all mine. This grand hall 
I have built; it is called by my name; there is my 
insignia on it. And yet I was once a poor boy. I have 
made it all myself. " 

My friend looked at him. "Well, you've all this on 
earth; but what have you got up there?" 

"Up where?" said the old man. 

"Up in heaven." 

"Well, I'm afraid I haven't got much up there." 

"Ah," said my friend, "but you've got to die, to 
leave this world; what will you take with you of all these 
things? You will die a beggar; for all these riches 
count as nothing in the kingdom of heaven. You will 
be a pauper; for you have no inheritance with the saints 
above." The poor old man (he was poor enough in 
reality, though rich in all the world's goods) burst into 
tears. He had no hope for the future. In four months' 
time he was dead; and where is he now? He lived and 
died without God, and without hope in this world or the 
next. 

Touching the Spot 

When a man has broken his arm, the surgeon must 
find out the exact spot where the fracture is. He feels 
along and presses gently with his fingers. 

"Is it there?" 



120 MOODY'S STORIES 

"No." 

"Is it there?" 

"No." 

Presently, when the surgeon touches another spot, 
"Ouch!" says the man. 

He has found the broken part, and it hurts. 

It is one thing to hear a man preach down other peo- 
ple's sins. Men will say, "That is splendid," and will 
want all their friends to go and hear the preacher. But 
let him touch on their individual sin, and declare, as 
Nathan did to David, "Thou art the man," and they 
say, "I do not like that." The preacher has touched a 
sore place. 

The Little Boy and the Big Book 

I like to think of Christ as a burden bearer. 

A minister was one day moving his library upstairs. 
As he was going up with a load of books, his little 
boy came in, and was very anxious to help his father. 
So his father just told him to go and get an armful, and 
bring them upstairs. When the father came back, he met 
the little fellow about half-way up, tugging away at 
the biggest book in the library. He couldn't manage 
to carry it up. It was too big. So he sat down and 
cried. 

His father found him, and just took him in his arms, 
book and all, and carried him upstairs. So Christ will 
carry you and all your burdens, if you will but let Him. 

The Invitation to a Saloon Opening 

They were going to have a great celebration at the 

opening of a saloon and billiard hall in Chicago, in the 

northern part of the city, where I lived. It was to be a 

gateway to death and to hell, one of the worst places in 



MOODY'S STORIES 121 

Chicago. As a joke they sent me an invitation to go to 
the opening. I took the invitation, and went down and 
saw the two men who had the saloon, and I said: 

"Is that a genuine invitation?" 

They said it was. 

"Thank you," I said; "I will be around, and if there 
is anything here I don't like I may have something to 
say about it." 

They said, "You are not going to preach, are you?" 

"I may." 

"We don't want you. We won't let you in." 

"How are you going to keep me out?" I asked. 
"There is the invitation." 

"We will put a policeman at the door." 

"What is the policeman going to do with that invita- 
tion?" 

"We won't let you in." 

"Well," I said, "I will be there." 

I gave them a good scare, and then I said, "I will 
compromise the matter; if you two men will get down 
here and let me pray with you, I will let you off." 

I got those two rum-sellers down on their knees, one 
on one side of me and the other on the other side, and 
I prayed God to save their souls and smite their busi- 
ness. One of them had a Christian mother, and he 
seemed to have some conscience left. After I had 
prayed, I said: 

"How can you do this business? How can you throw 
this place open to ruin the young men of Chicago?" 

Within three months the whole thing smashed up, and 
one of them was converted shortly after. I have never 
been invited to a saloon since. 



122 MOODY'S STORIES 

"Too Late!" 

At our church in Chicago I was closing the meeting 
one day, when a young soldier got up and entreated the 
people to decide for Christ at once. He said he had 
just come from a dark scene. A comrade of his, who had 
enlisted with him, had a father who was always entreat- 
ing him to become a Christian, and in reply he always 
said he would when the war was over. At last he was 
wounded, and was put into the hospital, but got worse, 
and was gradually sinking. One day, a few hours before 
he died, a letter came from his^sister, but he was too far 
gone to read it. It was such an earnest letter! The 
comrade read it to him, but he did not seem to under- 
stand it, he was so weak, till it came to the last sentence, ' 
which said: 

44 Oh, my dear brother, when you get this letter, will 
you not accept your sister's Savior?" 

The dying man sprang up from his cot, and said, 
"What do you say? what do you say?" And then, falling 
back on his pillow, feebly exclaimed, "It is too late! It 
is too late!" 

My dear friends, thank God it is not too late for you 
to-day. The Master is still calling you. Let every one 
of us, young and old, rich and poor, come to Christ at 
once, and He will put all our sins away. Don't wait 
any longer for feeling, but obey at once. You can 
believe, you can trust, you can lay hold on eternal life, if 
you will. Will you not do it now? 



Doa/lat* "^ or one dollar we w ^ send ten copies of 
IV^ttvlWl this book, or of any other of the series 
(assorted), to any address or addresses in the world, post- 
paid. 

Other books by Mr. Moody in this series are: Men of 
the Bible (No. 71), Moody's Anecdotes (No. 66), Weighed 
and Wanting (No. 60), The Overcoming Life (No. 44), 
Sowing and Reaping (No. 26), Select Sermons (No. 21), 
Sovereign Grace (No. 20), Bible Characters (No. 11), To 
the Work (No. 9), Secret Power (on the Holy Spirit) (No. 
8), Prevailing Prayer (No. 6), Heaven (No. 5), Pleasure and 
Profit in Bible Study (No. 3), and The Way to God (No. 
2). 15 cents each. Two for 25 cents. Ten for $1.00. 

Remit by bank draft or money order, payable to "A. F. 
Gaylord, Treasurer. ' ' Address letters to 

A. P. FITT, Supt. 
The Bible Institute Colportage Association, 
250 La Salle Ave., Chicago. " 




Tlie Goiportage Llbraro 

Single numbers, 15 cents; two for 25 cents; ten for $1.00; all 

postpaid. Each number complete in itself, about 

12$ pages. 

POPULAR BOOKS BY 

SPURGEON 

CHAPMAN 

TALMAGE 

MEYER and Others 



President 



The Bible Institute Colportage Association 

PUBLISHERS 
250 LA SALLE AVENUE CHICAGO 



No. i— AH of Grace. By C. H, 

Spurgeon. An earnest word with those 
who are seeking salvation by the Lord 
Jesus Christ. 
"Every word is weighted with precious 
truth, and truth so simply and convincing- 
ly put that none can fail to understand 
God's way of salvation. Powerful illustra- 
tions, apt and original similes, and the 
affectionate desire to win for Christ and to 
Christ, make it a gospel treasury of price- 
less worth."— The Christian. 

No. 2— The Way to God, and How 

to Find It. By D. L. Moody. Chap- 
ters to meet the special needs of differ- 
ent classes of inquirers, and for back- 
sliders. 
"Full of pathos, point and power. Can- 
not fail to be the means of quickening and 
blessing wherever read."— The Methodist. 

No. 3— Pleasure and Profit in 

Bible Study. By D. L. Moody. 
"Here are sixteen chapters containing 
the very best things Mr. Moody has ever 
said about the best of books. It is full of 
suggestions."— The Central Baptist. 

No. 4— Life, Warfare and Vic- 
tory. By D. W. Whittle. Life im- 
parted by God through faith in Jesus 
Christ; warfare with enemies, within 
and without; victory "through Him 
that loved us." 
"The author has written a book which 
will be found of immense service to those 
seeking after truth or who have just em- 
braced the Gospel of Christ."— Baptist 



No. 5— Heaven: Where it is; Its 

inhabitants; How to get there. The 
certainty of God's promise of a life be- 
yond the grave, and the rewards that 
are in store for faithful service. By 
D. L. Moody. 
"Eminently scriptural; earnest and im- 
pressive; will be welcomed by thousands. 17 
— Zion's Herald. 

No. 6— Prevailing Prayer; What 

hinders it? By D. L. Moody. Chap- 
ters on Adoration, Confession, Resti- 
tution, Thanksgiving, Forgiveness, 
Unity, Faith, Petition, Submission- 
nine elements that are essential to true 
prayer. Additional chapters on the 
prayers of the Bible, and answered 
prayers. 
"It is most searching and powerful in its 
appeals to the conscience, and abounds in 
well-told incidents."— Lay Preacher. 

No. 7— The Way of Life, marked 

out by Spurgeon, Chapman, McNeill, 
Moody, Talmage. 
"These discourses are eminently prac- 
tical, clear and Scriptural, andean scarcely 
fail to guide the honest inquirer in 'The 
Way of Life ' "—The PeninsulaMethodist. 

No. 8— Secret Power; or, The 

Secret of Success in Christian Life and 

Christian Work. By D. L. Moody. 

Power — its source; 'in' and 'upon'; in 

witnessing; in operation; hindered. 

"A deeply earnest and helpful book for 

the use of Christians, on the work of the 

Holy Spirit in the believer, inciting to 

more diligent effort and to a more perfect 

use of the privileges of the 'sons of God."' 



The Colportage Library 



No, 9— To the Work! A trumpet 

call to Christians, by D. L. Moody. 
Chapters on Hindrances, the Motive 
Power for Service, Faith, Courage, En- 
thusiasm, etc. 
"The prayerful study of this volume can- 
not fail to prove helpful and inspiring to 
all Christian workers, and to all who are 
aspiring to be like Christ in their love for 
souls and zeal for their salvation."— Pres- 
byterian. 

No. 10— According to Promise; 

or, The Lord's Method of dealing with 
His chosen people. By C. H. Spur- 
geon. A companion volume to "All 
of Grace." (No. i of the Colportage 
Library series.) 
"It is an eminently practical volume, the 
fruit of a ripe experience; as simple in its 
form as it is searching in its exposure of 
counterfeit religion; and we have no doubt 
that many will have reason to rejoice that 
they made its acquaintance. As Mr. Spur- 
geon remarks in one of his homely senten- 
ces, 'he who looked into his accounts and 
found that his business was a losing o«e 
was saved from bankruptcy.' " — Christian 
Leader. 

No. ii— Bible Characters. By 

D. L. Moody. Studies of the char- 
acters of Daniel, Enoch, Lot, Jacob 
and John the Baptist; showing the ways 
of God with different men, in different 
periods and under different circum- 
stances, always revealing the same wis- 
dom, love and power. 
"Mr. Moody goes right into the heart of 
his subject, and in a few words shows his 
reader the great truth or principle involved, 
teaching lessons for all time and all gene- 
rations. In his hands the Bible is a living 
book."— Christian Age. 

No. 12— Gospel Pictures and 

Story Sermons for children. By D. 
W. Whittle. Major Whittle's object 
sermons for children, teaching by the 
eye as well as by the ear. The topics 
are— The Poison Sermon— The Magnet 
Sermon — The Candle Sermon — The 
Commandments Sermon (two parts) — 
The Heart Sermon. Profusely illus- 
trated. 
"Simple, attractive, instructive; and may 
prove suggestive to all pastors wishing to 
present, in a forceful way, important truths 
to young minds." — The Standard. 

No. 13 — And Peter, and other ser- 
mons. By J. Wilbur Chapman. Con- 
taining eight of Dr. Chapman's most 
helpful sermons. 
"The style and matter are almost as at- 



tractive as the magnetic utterances of the 
author. All is direct, searching, forcible 
and readable."— Brotherhood Star. 

No. 14— Select Poems. 

"Thirty-one gems of religious verse." — 
Northwestern Christian Advocate. 

"A selection in which rare discrimination 
and thorough knowledge of devotional 
verse are evinced."— Young Merts Era. 

No. 15— Light on Life's Duties. 

By F. B. Meyer, with an introduction 
by J. Wilbur Chapman. Chapters en- 
titled: The Chambers of the King; 
The Lost Chord Found; The Secret of 
Victory over Sin; The First Step into 
the Blessed Life; With Christ in Separ- 
ation; How to Read Your Bible: The 
Common Task; Young Men, Don't 
Drift; Words of Help for Christian 
Girls; Seven Rules for Daily Living. 
"Full of good things, and suitable for 
distri bution. ' '— Christian Observer. 

No. 16— Point and Purpose in 

Story and Saying. 

"Full of pithy anecdote and illustration, 
of exceptional value to clergy and laymen." 
— Young Men's Era. 

No. 17— Selections from Spur- 

geon. Giving characteristic selections 
from Mr. Spurgeon's sermons, reveal- 
ing the secret of his mighty power as a 
preacher. 
''Covers a wide variety of spiritual topics 

in the great preacher's inimitable way."— 

The Golden Rule. 

No. 18— The Good Shepherd, a 

life of our Saviour for children. Large 
print, profusely illustrated. 
Hundreds of thousands of copies of this 
book have been sold. 

No. 19— Good Tidings, by Tal- 

mage, Spurgeon, Parker, McNeill. 
"Behold, I bring you Good Tidings of 
great joy, which shall be to all people; 
For unto you is born this day— a Sa- 
vior." (Luke ii. 11, 12.) 
"Every page a bearer of good tidings to 
the mind and heart of the reader. A good 
book for the widest circulation."-— The 
Evangelical. 

No. 20— Sovereign Grace, its 

source, its nature, and its effects. By 

D. L. Moody. 
"Particularly useful as showing the part 
which the grace of God takes in the work 
of conversion and regeneration."— Preach* 
er's Analyst* 



The Colportage Library 



No. 21 — Select Sermons. By D. 

L.Moody. Sermons entitled: ''Where 

art thou?"; There is no difference; 

Good News; Christ seeking sinners; 

Sinners seeking Christ; "What think 

ye of Christ?"; Excuses (two parts.) 

. "With the effect of these addresses,when 

spoken, the whole land is acquainted, and 

now that they are printed, they will tend 

to keep in force the impression they have 

already made."— Methodist. 

No. 22 — Temperance. 

"A perfect magazine of anecdotes, ex- 
periences, facts and arguments, helpful 
alike to generaf reader or public speaker." 
— The Baptist Union. 

"The subject is wisely and attractively 
handled."— Herald ana Presbyter. 

No. 23— Nobody Loves Me. A 

story by Mrs. O. F.Walton. {Illus- 
trated.) 
"A touching story of the way in which a 
hardened andloveless life was led into true 
light and love."— The Union Signal. 

No. 24— Resurrection. Sermons 

by MacLaren,Talmage,Liddon, Moody 

and Spurgeon. 
"A rich collection of argument, exhorta- 
tion, suggestion and application, centering 
upon the foundation doctrine of our Chris- 
tianity. "—The Evangelical. 

"The blessed hope of a glorious resur- 
rection is made doubly real and precious 
by the sermons of these men through 
whom God has so often spoken."— The 
Golden Rule. 

No. 25— Vagen till Gud. ("The 

Way to God." See No. 2 ,\ Swedish. 

No. 26— Sowing and Reaping. 

ByD. L. Moody. 

On the text -"Be not deceived; God is 
not mocked; for whatsoever a mansoweth, 
that shall he also reap." (Gal. vi. 7.) 

"An admirable specimen of the evangel- 
ist's practical, vigorous, pungent style."— 
The Congregationalism 

No. 27— Himmelen. ("Heaven." 

See No. 5.) Swedish. 

No. 28— Probable Sons. A Story. 

(Illustrated.) 

"Among the brightest, most charming 
and irresistible of child creations in our 
recent literature."— The Independent. 

"I could wish this little story might have 
a million readers, as it has proved a means 
of grace to my own heart." — Thomas Spur- 
geon. 

No. 29 — Segervinnande Bon. 

("Prevailing Prayer." See No. 6.) 
Swedish. 



No. 30— Good News. By Robert 

Boyd. 

"It will perhaps lend interest to the read- 
ing of this book to know that D. L. Moody 
got his first definite ideas of gospel truths 
from its contents."— Extract from Preface. 

No. 31— Forborgad Kraft. ("Se- 
cret Power." See No. 8.) Swedish. 

No. 32— The Secret of Guidance. 

ByF. B. Meyer. 

A companion volume to No. 14, "Light 
on Life'sDuties." Chapters entitled— "The 
Secret of Guidance"; "Where am I 
wrong?"; "The Secret of Christ's Indwell- 
ing"; "Fact! Faith! Feeling!"; "Why Sign 
the Pledge?"; "Burdens, and What To Do 
With Them"; "How to Bear Sorrow"; "In 
the Secret of His Presence"; "The Fulness 
of the Spirit." 

"These two books contain the essence of 
my teaching."— F. B. Meyer. 

No. 33— Utvalda Predikningar. 

("Select Sermons." See No. 21.) 
Swedish. 

No. 34— The Second Coming of 

Christ. Chapters by D. L. Moody, 
Bishop J. C. Ryle, George Muller, 
Major Whittle, C. H. Spurgeon and 
others. 
"Good fuel to feed the flame of that 
'blessed hope' in the breast of every be- 
liever." — The Evangelical. 

No. 35— Bibel Berattelser for 

Barn. By W. H. B. ("Bible Stories 
for Children.") Swedish. 

No. 36— Sunday Talks to the 

Young. By Josiah Mee. 
"This book embodies a happy thought. 
Thirty-one excellent short talks on most 
important themes." 

No. 37— Der Himmel. ("Hea- 
ven." See No. 5.) German. 
No. 38— Parables from Nature. 

By Mrs. Alfred Gatty. 
"A very interesting book, in which reli- 
gious truths are taught by various mem- 
bers of the inanimate world." — Cumber- 
land Presbyterian. 

No. 39— Verborgene Kraft. ("Se- 
cret Power." See No. 8.) German. 

No. 40— Kadesh=Barnea, or the 

Power of a Surrendered Life. By J. 
Wilbur Chapman. 
"Maps out the way of the life of full 
spiritual blessing."— S. S. Times. 

No. 41— Himmelen. ("Heaven." 

See No. 5.)- Dan.-Norw. 



The Colportage Library 



No. 42— Whiter than Snow, and 

Little Dot. Stories. {Illustrated.) 
"These two stories will minister grace to 
the reader, and should be welcomed into 
Sunday schools and homes." 

No. 43— Seirende Bon. ("Pre- 
vailing Prayer." See No. 6.) Danish- 
Norwegian. 

No. 44— The Overcoming Life, 

and other sermons. By D. L. Moody. 
Chiefly for Christians. 

Contents— The Overcoming Life : Part 
I, the Christian's Warfare— Part II, Inter- 
nal Foes— Part III, External Foes. And 
other sermons as follows : "Results of True 
Repentance"; "True Wisdom"; "Come 
thou and all thy House into the Ark"; 
"Humility"; "Rest"; "Seven 'I wills' of 
Christ". 

"While Mr. Moody is a John the Baptist, 
calling men to repent, he is also a Peter, 
preaching new Pentecosts, and leading 
men to fuller consecration." — S. S. Times. 

No. 45— Forborgen Kraft. ("Se- 
cret Power." See No. 8.) Dan.-Norw. 

No. 46 — A Royal Exile, and other 
sermons. By T. DeWitt Talmage. 
"There are ten sermons here, full of the 

Gospel and calculated to do great good." — 

Herald and Presbyter. 

No. 47 — Udvalgte Praedikener. 

("Select Sermons." See No. 21.) 
Danish-Norwegian. 

No. 48— The Prodigal. Chapters 

by Spurgeon, Aitken, and others. 
Founded on the parable of the Prodi- 
gal Son. 
"These addresses, by the eminent men 
named, are highly suggestive and instruc- 
tive."— The Religious Telescope. 

No. 49— The Spirit=Filled Life. 

By John MacNeil. 10,000 copies sold 
within a week of publication. 
"I wish to urge all, especially ministers 
of the gospel, to give this little book a 
prayerful reading. I feel confident it will 
bring them help and blessing. It will 
deepen the conviction of the great need 
and absolute duty of being filled with the 
Spirit. It will point out the hindrances 
and open up the wav. It will stir up faith 
and hope." — From Rev, Andrew Murray's 
Introduction. 

No. 50— Jessica. A story in two 

parts— "Jessica's First Prayer" and 

"Jessica's Mother." By Hesba Stret- 

ton. {Illustrated. 1 ) 

This work is a classic, and has already 

lad a sale aggregating about two millions. 



By J. G. 



No. 51— A Castaway, and other 

Addresses, delivered by F. B. Meyer. 
"I believe that what is here taught will 
give a glimpse into those deeper aspects of 
Christianity which are best adapted to 
nourish and quicken the inner life."— F. B. 
Meyer in the preface. 

No. 52— Heaven on Earth. By 

A. C. Dixon. 
"A collection of thirteen sermons, which 
magnify the dignity and privileges of the 
Christian's earthly life, and sing out many 
a note of help and cheer for the toiling 
child of God/ '—Baptist Standard. 

No. 53— Select Northfield Ser- 
mons. By W. W. Moore, Webb- 
Peploe, McKenzie, Bonar, Gordon, 
Speer, Cuyler, etc. 
"One sermon, 'The Religion of Unspot- 

tedness,' is worth the price of the book." — 

Christian Courier. 

No. 54— Absolute Surrender, by 

Andrew Murray. 
"To earnest Christian people seeking a 
more satisfactory experience and greater 
conformity to the voice and heart of Christ, 
this book will be as a guiding star of 
hope." — Christian Work. 

No. 55— Possibilities. 

K. McClure. 
"Unusually bright and pertinent dis- 
courses, full of the American quality of 
directness, go to make up this volume."— 
Sunday School Times. 

No. 56— Faith. Chapters by Spur- 
geon, Finlayson, Aitken, Maclaren and 
Moody. 

No. 57— Christie's Old Organ, by 

Mrs. O. F. Walton. A story. (Illust.) 
"A splendid book to leave in homes 
where tracts would be refused."— Church 
Calendar, 

No. 58— Naaman the Syrian, by 

A. B. Mackay. Introduction by D. L. 
Moody. 
The history of Naaman the Syrian, as 
recorded in 2 Kings, is the groundwork of 
this interesting and helpful book. 

No. 59— The Lost Crown, by J. 

Wilbur Chapman. 
"Calculated to stir Christians to a care- 
ful discharge of duty." 

No. 60— Weighed and Wanting. 

Addresses on the Ten Commandments, 

by D. L. Moody. 
"Especially notable for the best charac- 
teristics of the evangelist's style. His 
force and fire and power appear even on 
the printed page."— Evangelical 



The Colportage Library. 



No. 61— The Crew of the Dol- 
phin, By Hesba Stretton. A story of the 
sea. [Illustrated.) 
U The book is graphic, and has a strong 

Christian tone." — The Congregationalist. 

No. 62— John Ploughman's Talk, 

or, Plain Advice for Plain People. By C. 

H. Spurgeon. Spurgeon's most popular 

book; over half a million copies sold. 

Deals in simple language with everyday 
faults and virtues, warning and instruction be- 
ing clothed in Spurgeon's inimitable wit and 
humor. 

No. 63— Meet for the Master's 

Use, By F. B. Meyer. Containing reports 
of addresses delivered in the United States. 
"Stirring and inspiring. Mr. Meyer's 
preaching is characterized by directness, by 
simplicity, by plainness, and by that strange 
power of finding the conscience which is one of 
the truest tests of preaching. 1 ' — Sunday School 
Times. 

No. 64— Our Bible. Is My Bible 

True? strd Where Did We Get It? By 

Charles Leach; and Ten Reasons Why I 
Believe the Bible Is the Word of God, 

By R. A. Torrey. 

" A book that believers in the authority and 
authenticity of the Bible ought to possess. 
The core of the case has been presented in a 
way that cannot but produce the most favorable 
impression." — Western Christian Advocate. 

No. 65— Alone in London. By 

Hesba Stretton. A story. (Illustrated.) 
Equal to any of the stories of this popular 
authoress. 

No. 67 — Drummond's Ad= 

dresses. Six of Henry Drummond's earlier 
addresses. Introduction by D. L. Moody. 
u This volume contains the well-known ad- 
dress on 4 Love, the Greatest Thing in the 
World,* and several others whose worth has 
been well tested. Mr. Moody's introductory 
note is characteristic." — Church Calendar. 

No. 60— Children of the Bible. 

Chapters on the childhood of Isaac and 
Ishmael, Joseph, Moses, Samuel, David, 
Jesus, Timothy, and others. Large print, 
copiously illustrated. 

" Ought to be welcomed by the children of 
thousands of homes. No better stories were 
ever told, and in the present handy volume 
they are again well told." — Christian Guardian. 

No. 70— The Power of Pentecost. 

By Rev. Thomas Waugh. With a chapter 

on " The Filling of the Holy Spirit," by F. 

B. Meyer. 

The author, who is one of the leaders of the 
Methodist Forward Movement in England, 
points out the need of all needs in the church 
to-day, and shows how the power of Pentecost 
can be obtained and retained 



No. 66 — Moody's Anecdotes. 

Anecdotes, incidents and illustrations from 

the addresses of D. L. Moody. Authorised. 

u There does not appear to be a pointless 

story included, and most of them are keen as a 

Damascus blade." — Sunday School Times. 

No. 68— The Mirage of Life. By 

W. Haig Miller. Fully illustrated, by 

Tenniel. 

" It is a portrait gallery of famous char- 
acters who have figured in various walks of life 
and missed its great end, deceived by the 
mirage." 

No. 71— Men of the Bible. By a 

L. Moody. 

Chapters entitled: Abraham's Four Sur- 
renders; The Call of Moses; Naarhan the 
Syrian; Nehemiah; Herod and John the Bap- 
tist; The Man Born Blind and Joseph of 
Arimathea; The Penitent Thief. 

" Expressed in Mr. Moody's effective style." 
— The Christian Evangelist. 

No. 72 — A Peep Behind the 

Scenes. By Mrs, O. F. Walton. A story. 

(Illustrated.) 

44 1 have just finished reading c A Peep Be- 
hind the Scenes.' It will add greatly to our 
list of books. It is one of the best things 
against the theatre that can be brought out, 
and will do much good." — D. L. Moody. 

No. 73— The School of Obedi- 
ence. By Andrew Murray. 
M This beautifully written and deeply spirit- 
ual book we would most heartily commend to 
all Christian workers and Bible students, and 
especially for the instruction and strengthening 
of young men and women, on whose obedi- 
ence and devotion so much depends for the 
church and the world." — Footsteps of Truth. 

No. 74— Home Duties. By R. T. 

Cross.*. 

Duties of Husbands, Wives, Parents, Chil- 
dren, Brothers, Sisters; Duty of Family Wor- 
ship, Method of Family Worship; Duty of 
Getting a Home, and How to Get It. 

No. 75 — Tales of Adventure 

from the Old Book. By Thomas 

Champness. 

Mr. Champness* graphic and practical style 
lends new interest to the Bible incidents he 
deals with. 

No. 76— Moody's Stories. A 

second volume of anecdotes, incidents and 
illustrations selected from the addresses of 
D. L. Moody. (See No. 66.) Authorised 
collection. 

No. 77— The True Estimate of 

Life. By G. Campbell Morgan. 

Addresses that made a profound impression 
when delivered at Northfield, including "To 
Me to Live is Christ," " Redeeming the 
Time," etc. 



03 



H^U 



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Paper and printing of first-rate quality. About 125 pages in each. All copy- 
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Vagen till Gud ( "The Way to God." ) 



SWEDISH 

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25 
27 
29 
31 
33 
35 



Himmelen ("Heaven.") 
Segervinnande Bon ("Prevailing Prayer.") 
Forborgad Kraft ("Secret Power." ) 
Utvalda Predikningar ("Select Sermons.") 
Bibel Berattelser for Barn, by H. W. B, 
( < 'Bible Stories for Children . " ) Illustrated. 
GERMAN 
37. Der Himmel ("Heaven.") 
39. Verborgene Kraft ("Secret Power.") 

DANISH-NORWEGIAN 
41. Himmelen ("Heaven.") 
43. Seirende Bon ("Prevailing Prayer.") 
45. Forborgen Kraft ("Secret Power.") 
47. Udvalgte Praedikener ("Select Sermons.") 



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Marked New Testament 

To fix the attention of the reader 
OBJECT: upon certain texts which are 
marked in red and black. 



The text follows the Authorized Version. The markings have 6etn 
reproduced in exact fac simile of hand-markings, by special setting and 
engraving. 

The verses marked will, under the Holy Spirit's teaching, help to make 
plain God's Way of Salvation through Christ. They deal exclusively 
with this subject in its various phases— the divinity and death of Jesus Christ, 
repentance, faith, obedience, etc. — and aie not spread out over a variety of 
topics. 

Philip's question, ii Understandest thou ivhat thou rcadest?" and the 
reply he received, ii Hoiv can 7, except some man should guide me?" probably 
occur more frequently to-day than eve; the advantage, therefore, of such 
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mendation: 

"Having examined the marked passages in the New Testament now being 
prepared, I am satisfied there is nothing in them suggestive of controversy among 
Protestant churches, and I heartily commend the undertaking." 

Archdeacon of Warrington, England: 

"The texts marked clearly set forth Repentance, Faith and Obedience as the 
three parts of a true and full Salvation." 

Rev% Thomas Spurgeon: 

"It will be a red-letter day when it is issued.*" 

Rev. F.B Meyer, M.A.: 

"An excellent method of directing a seeking soul." 

Lord Overtoun: 

"Lady Overtoun and I have often labored at the marking of Testaments m 
various languages before giving them away. We wish you all success in what I am 
sure will prove a boon to Christian workers." 

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"The marking has been very carefully and judiciously done." 



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COLPORTAGE LIBRARY 

Uniform with this copy The Bible Institute Colp 
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VOLUME V 

Twelve numbers, one a month, Si. 20 postpaid. 

No. 73. The School of Obedience, by Andrew Murray. 

No. 74. Home Duties, by R. T. Cross. 

No. 75. Tales of Adventure from the Old Book, by Thomas Champne 

No. 76. Moody's Stories. A second volume of anecdotes, incidents a 

illustrations, by D. L. Moody. Authorized collection. 

No. 77. The True Estimate of Life, by G. Campbell Morgan. 

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